Bring Me Back
by DiggyDelena
Summary: No one informed me being 21 would send me half-way across the country to a tiny little town full of mythology, send me into a quest of reviving a man I never even met, and bring me in to a world I had reserved for fairytales and horror stories.
1. Prologue

I was dreaming.

From a far distance something wailed into the darkness. It wasn't human. It wasn't a cry...maybe a _caw_.

Everything swirled and hazed around me like a scene set in slow motion; a space full of smoke..._fog._

What was I doing here again? Had I found my body in such an existential crisis that my soul wandered lost through foggy expanses of blackness every time I welcomed slumber?

And I was alone. I was always alone.

A second screeched loudly this time to the right and my body spun so quickly the world of this fantasy swirled wildly like fog in a wind.

And then there it was. A shadow. It was a shadow of something...some thing the height of a man, all one shade of black.

A black shadow against the milky atmosphere. The caw was near but this figure was far. I didn't feel gravity as my feet stepped forward. Petrified in a sudden iciness of a frozen abyss, nothing moved. As my body involuntarily progressed it's steps, the figure emerged more clearly, however.

Gray as ash with hair like a crows feather's, it was a man. His head bent low, his body unmoving, he wasn't human. Something strange about the ashen figure with hands and skin dry like old parchment and cold as death. There was something else...a sound almost as soft as a whisper.

It was a patter...something against sand..._a dripping_..._pat...pat...pat._

As my foot stepped once more closer, the figure's stillness gave away a darker detail. The sound of a drip came protruded from this figures chest, something long and thick, rough like bark...wooden.

And then I noticed. A dark little drop fall from the protrusion and land in a small puddle at the figure's feet.

The world spun wildly as everything became clear. The deep copper smell of life...of blood filled the senses.

"Hello?"

And then rose that icy stare once more.


	2. Chapter 1: Mystic Falls

There were many advantages to being a witch. For one you learned many lessons any average human being would never even think of. Like dreams.

The average sixteen year old typically dreams of their favorite sexy celebrities and sports cars; they don't need to worry about any alternative meanings behind the slumber messages. Being a witch at sixteen however, you dream about dark entities visiting you while your slumber and you mentally need to prepare for the death of a loved one two days later.

Feelings were another major aspect of being a witch. Normal teenagers get feelings all the time-feelings for a puppy crush, feeling that they're going to flunk their pre-calc final, etc. When you are a witch though and get this sudden feeling of ice and dread, you avoid what brought on that feeling to avoid being the next victim of the date-rapist whose hand you just shook. It came with the trade.

And secrets…secrets were a major day-to-day symptom of being a mythical being. Most kids, teens, and young adults keep secrets from their family and friends: who you hang out with, who is on the phone, crushes, drugs, pregnancy scares, whatever. I was no exception to the secrets, except the secrets of a witch were much more dire than that of a drugged-out teenager. Centuries ago witches were burned at the stake for being born as a supernatural entity. Naturally, we remain few and hidden today in the real world. Mixed over the centuries, a witch can be born of any family, any class, or any ethnicity that had a bewitched ancestor in its line. I was the only witch in the family besides a great aunt who no one seemed to really know as a relative. With this came then the secret of my identity from everyone and anyone I encountered, family, friends, and strangers included.

"16 miles to the next rest stop. To stop or not to stop, what a decision," I spoke aloud to the shadows of my car. The road outside the frosty, tinted windows ran on and on like a repeating pattern on an endless webpage. Trees and shrubbery on the sideline followed suit like genetic clones of each other, each one like the next and identical to the last. Yet somewhere in the past seventeen and a half hours, the trees went from green palms and fruit bearers to out placed pines, to leafless trunks, to frozen icicle-growing sticks on the edge of the road. Somewhere along the seventeen and a half hour drive, my world changed from hot and humid south Florida to cold, half-dead Virginia in winter.

Virginia. What was Elouise Stingles doing in Virginia?

In fact, even I didn't know. It was another feeling; another episode if you may. After spending 21 years in south Florida where I grew up and watched everyone around me disappear or die, I woke up 24 hours ago with a mission to get to Virginia.

And so get into my car I did, without so much as a plan in mind or navigational system for guidance.

These were episodes indeed. Two years ago I woke up one morning in my dorm room, headed straight to the registrar's office and was suddenly a "History of Mythology" major. Without so much as a second glance, I switched from a political science major to a mythology major. Today, I just drove and somehow made it to the state of Virginia without any plan or schedule. In fact, the only thing I brought was my Great Aunt's book. The book was a mystery in itself. My Great Aunt left it to me in her will.

She was my only relative besides my parents, and there was a family secret that she had a very large fortune to her name.

Yet when she died just before my 18th Birthday, she only had one item written on her will: "to my dear Elouise, I leave you my magical book of myth."

Book of Myth it was, too. The cover reflected something you'd find hidden for centuries in a library, tattered and worn over the ages. A date inside read 1850. The funny thing was the first page had a story written in ink, and then the remaining pages were all blank. Every last on of them.

And this 178-year-old-book was apparently given to my Great Aunt when she was born, meaning the book was probably just as likely 178 years old as my aunt was. Immortality was not something a witch was yet able to conceive.

"Next Exit: Mystic Falls. Well isn't that ominous," I said aloud to myself in the empty vehicle. Mystic Falls, Virginia.

Who names a town, "Mystic Falls?" The name itself sound like something reserved for a fiction novel. A town with any mention of "mystic" or magic should surely be something reserved for magical films or Harry Potter novels. If anyone ever thought anything "mystical" existed in our world, the entire course of history would be altered, and everyone by definition of the word "mystical" would be targeted, whether for good or bad. I guess that's why I kept myself hidden and my aunt's book enchanted to have clear pages.

"Welcome to Mystic Falls," I read aloud once more. Ready or not, this tiny little town was about to be stirred up by something they clearly would have never expected. As I pulled through a small roundabout of the town, 19th century style businesses and sores lined the streets with perfectly trimmed rose bushes and shrubs. _What was I doing in such a boring place?_

My first order of business was to find a place to stay however. As I passed a small restaurant, a young man walked out with a pretty blonde on his arm. I pulled up next to the curb swiftly and beckoned the passenger side window down.

"Excuse me," I called out. The man and his lady turned to me with a very friendly 'oh, a stranger, cool' expression. "I was wondering where the best place to book a room in town would be. Suggestions?"

"Err, well, there aren't really any major hotel chains in town," he answered honestly. His young lady must have suddenly remembered something however, because the next moment she mouthed something to him and the metaphorical lightbulb illuminated on his face.

"Oh yeah, actually your best bet is the Gilbert home. They rent out the extra rooms during the fall. Just head about eight blocks down the street and then make a left. Its about four blocks down. It has a white sign on it saying 'Rooms Available' or something. He should be able to get you a stay." _Rooms available. How original._

A room in a creepy old home. How charming. "Great, thanks. Who am I looking for there?" I asked before pulling back out of the curb.

"The owner-his name is Jeremy Gilbert."

A sudden chill ran up my spine. Not necessarily in a good way, but not in a bad way. It was the chill of mystery. A strange sensation I had only once experienced: in my wicked dreams of the unnamed figure.

"Jeremy Gilbert, got it. Thanks," I mumbled strangely as the man walked away back hand-in-hand with his lady. I pulled out of my stop swiftly and headed down the path my stranger had just pointed.

As I drove down the dozen blocks to this new destination I couldn't help but notice how traditional this small town turned out to be.

"Its like a town stuck in a time warp," I mumbled to myself as I drove into a small neighborhood now of colonial stele home. As soon as I turned on the next street, I noticed the large dark-green letter on old white wood sign reading "Rooms Available". Behind it, an old-fashioned white-washed home with a tiny porch and old windows loomed silently in the equally timed neighborhood. _Charming, _I thought sarcastically.

Pulling into a spot swiftly, I left the car and went up the front steps. As my hand came to knock on the glass of the door's window however, the door opened to reveal a young, tall and very attractive smiling man.

"Hi, Jeremy Gilbert. Looking for a room?"

"This is a pretty good room, actually. It used to be my sisters though, so its attached to a jack-and-jill over there, but while the room's being rented my side will be locked and I'm rarely here anyways, so your free to use it." Jeremy Gilbert was a particular character. He was surprisingly warm and charming and ridiculously attractive with a gleam in his eye. He appeared to be at most in his early, early twenties, but the way he moved, spoke, and managed the place made me think his appearance was deceiving his real age.

All the while Jeremy Gilbert introduced the house and himself, that strange feeling that led me to Mystic Falls, Virginia kept looming over his lean frame.

"Finally," he began as we exited what was soon going to be my room and headed down stairs. "Down and to the right is the kitchen. I never eat at home so feel free to use it whenever you'd like. I'm pretty sure its well equipped too."

The kitchen was surprisingly spacious considering its apparent neglect. "Nice…" I muttered absently as we made our way back towards the open front door. Outside, passerby's were walking cheerfully like an old 90's movie, occasionally peering towards this attractive young man and the stranger girl.

"Ok, well that's pretty much it. If your staying on a week-by-week basis, payment is due every Friday by noon. On a month-by-month basis, rent is due on the first. Anything else?" he asked now halfway through the threshold of the house.

"Uhhhh, nope; I think this is great. Just what I needed."

"Great! Well then, welcome to Mystic Falls Miss….?" He extended his hand and held out the last syllable as he waited for my proper introduction.

"Oh," It finally dawned on me he was waiting for my name. "Elouise, but you can call me-"

Everything froze in that instant. As soon as my skin came into contact with his, it all happened at once.

My veins suddenly froze from the contact to the rest of my body. Ice course from the contact up my veins and arteries like inject liquid nitrogen. My heart beat exploded into an over-clocked speed, my skin felt like it slid right off my bones. And then a gush of odor burned through my senses like a poison. every hair on my body was suddenly a knife, piercing into every inch of my skin. An odor of cold rot….an odor of _death._ And my vision exploded into white, a face with an evil glare turned towards me, eyes blood shot red, black veins popping around its eyes like spider legs, two long teeth bared, blood smeared across its face. My mouth opened and I felt a giant scream escape. Then it rushed towards me.

"Are you okay?" As soon as he released my hand, it all stopped. The hair on my arms remained up as my heart raced like an electrical current outage. But now it was just those two soft brown eyes and dark little birthmark on his cheek.

"You," I gasped, immediately pulling my hands towards my body. "You're a vamp-" but before I could finish the sentence, my body was slammed against the back of a door, an arm across my mouth. I watched in horror as that feeling of death over-powered me with the sight before my eyes: the white of his eyes turned blood-red, black veins spread across his skin, and as he opened his mouth, two fangs gleamed in the dim light. My blood ran cold.

_Vampire._

"And you're a witch," he spoke hoarsely with a wicked smirk.


	3. Chapter 2: Vampire

_The deep copper smell of life...of blood filled the senses._

_"Hello?"_

_And then rose that icy stare once more._

_A black shadow against the milky atmosphere, it was him again. A spirit, the body of a man, but with the soul of death itself. A caw echoed through the empty space like thunder once more. Petrified in a sudden iciness of a frozen abyss and this man's icy stare, nothing moved. His gaze stood strong, but his form seemed so weak it was almost fading like a bad satellite reception. Everything went silent. No more birds, no wind, no thunder. The fog stayed strong as a barrier for my vision._

_He just starred, icy gaze glued at my frozen self._

_From afar, a lone black feather fell from the sky._

* * *

><p>"Beer?"<p>

I looked up shakily at the same man that had shaken my very core only moments earlier. My whole body was shaking; it was convulsing in deep tremors.

"Y-y-yea."

He placed two bottles on the small island and then progressed to open both with his hand before bringing one to his lips.

"If I am the first vampire you've encountered here, you are the luckiest witch to come to Mystic Falls," he spoke before another sip. He eyed me.

"There's more of you here?" I stammered out incredibly.

He smirked. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."

Both hands on my bottle, the shivers had lessoned considerably, but that underlining feeling of ice in my veins remained as a reminder of the demon this warm young man was just moments prior.

"I'm really sorry," he said much softer this time. I was frozen, starring into his warm eyes. "I really didn't mean to attack you. Its just," he ran a hand through his hair roughly. "The last witches that came to Mystic Falls killed a lot of loved ones in the town. I needed to make sure you didn't intend anything…harmful."

"So you've met a witch before?"

His face didn't change, but I felt the mood undeniably change to a darker tone. "Yeah, I dated one for a while too. She was a great person; one of the reason's there's still a Mystic Falls here today to begin with."

"Is she still here?"

"Well, uh…" he ran his hand over his hair once more, this time his face gloomy to match his tone. "She died. Long time ago."

"Were you close?" His face looked up at me and the sudden reality hit me that I was essentially interrogating him in his own home. "Sorry," I instantly said upon the realization. "I didn't mean to question."

"No no, its cool. Uh, we dated a while. Nothing to extravagant in that, but she was my sister's best friend since essentially forever, and honestly, she's the only reason I'm still alive-technically speaking," he smirked before taking another drink of his bottle.

I followed suit and took another sip of my beer, mulling over what I was learning already and unconsciously already feeling more comfortable around Jeremy Gilbert. "So she turned you into a vampire?"

"Who, Bonnie? No," he laughed. "No, she brought me back to life once when I was shot. After I got my neck snapped once by a very drunk and dangerously tempered man, and before I died again and became a vampire."

"So is cheating death a favorite pastime of yours or something?"

He smiled, "I guess something like that."

I watched him intently and quietly. Watched as he swallowed the rest of the beer, watched as he placed the bottle centered in the middle of a stained ring on the island top, and then proceeded the turn the bottle so the label was facing him.

He was pensive; thoughtful. He didn't need to speak for me to read his thoughts. There was a lot of mythology in this town that I would have ever made out to be, and I had a strong feeling Jeremy Gilbert was an easy entranceway into those stories.

"How long have you been a vampire?"

He looked up at me sideways. "Since I was 17." Releasing the empty bottle, he sat back in his seat, never loosing sight of me. "About….seventeen years ago, give or take. I died from…damn, I don't even know what. So much shit happened at once, I just know I woke up one moment in transition, and that was it."

"Does everyone in town know that there are vampires here?"

"No," he answered quickly. He paused. "Actually, probably a good chunk of them do, especially anybody who's been here the past 20 years or part of the council. We're not exactly celebrities though, you know."

"Did you want to become a vampire?"

Now he was really watching me. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be inhospitable or anything, but whats with all the questions, Elouise?"

"_Elle,_" I said quickly, a tinge of remorse now in my voice. "You can call me Elle. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrogate you."

He studied me for a moment, a strange look in his eyes. "What are _you _doing in Mystic Falls?"

I opened my mouth to answer but then just found myself closing it again. "Honestly," I began. "I have _no_ idea."

His gaze stayed strong. He was watching me as if I was a puzzle he wanted to decipher.

"I just woke up about 24…" I looked down at my watch. "26 hours ago with this feeling to drive. No idea where I was going or why I was headed here, but I eventually just got into my car and drove and somehow ended up here."

His look didn't change. "And where exactly did you come from?"

"South Florida."

His eyes grew wide this time and I could almost see that shield he just had up of skepticism begin to fade. "And you had no map or anything? You just happened to end up in the most mythical town of the entire state or even country?"

It was my turn to get skeptical. "Now who's interrogating who, Mr. Gilbert?"

He smiled sideways and sat up a little more. "Guess we're on the same mission for information," he said nonchalantly. Somewhere in that head of his though, I just knew he was putting something together that I hadn't so much as even thought of yet.

"I don't know why I just _had _to come here," I spoke more seriously. "But I know there has to be some reason as to why I was on a mission to cross four states to get here. Something I must be here to find or do."

"I'd like to know too," he said plainly. "Its strange that you would be brought here almost two decades after everything ended."

"Wait," I suddenly realized there was a large portion of his vampire story he hadn't informed me of. "What exactly is this 'everything'?"

"Pretty much the event that turned Mystic Falls back into a human-friendly neighborhood. The event that wiped out half the town but ended all the vampire, werewolf, and witch problems we'd been having for over a year or so."

I watched him intently.

"The first and strongest original vampire hybrid was destroying our town. Vampires and werewolves and witches were gathering in this town. It was turning into a Mystic Falls apocalypse. But it broke a lot of millennia-long curses and stories too…

_It started with two brother's, Damon and Stefan Salvatore. The were about a hundred and sixty years old, but they blended in as 17 and 21. My sister, Elena fell hard for the younger. He was a vampire like his brother. It didn't take long for things to get ugly after that…_

_The older brother came to Mystic Falls for one reason and one reason only. He wanted to revive the girl he'd been in love with for almost a hundred and fifty years. Her name was Katherine, and upon opening her seal, Damon realized she was never locked away at all. His mission turned into a domino effect however. They realized my sister was almost identical to their long lost love, and with news of a possible living doppleganger, the town started to attract attention._

_The attention got hold of some original brothers._

_Originals were the first vampires in history. They began the curse of night dwellers when the eldest-a werewolf by blood-killed the original Petrova. When vampires began, his werewolf form was sealed and he required a living, human doppleganger to break it. My sister was the match. The Salvatore brother's tried to stop him, but in the end they were betrayed and he won._

_The original was now out to prowl the world. He became the ultimate enemy. Being a hybrid, he had no weakness and no ways of bringing him down. The brother were split for a while, each sacrificing to save the other and keep Mystic Falls in one piece. In the end though, only together could they do anything about the original. But things had to get worser still for anything to happen._

_Months or turmoil and torture later, the town was a bloody war zone. In the last moment of despair however, the brothers, my sister, and some vampire, werewolf, and witches finally ended the war. But not without great personal losses._

As Jeremy told me the story I could feel a chill run up my skin. Originals, vampires, werewolves, witches…it was a lot to register.

"Is that when Bonnie died?"

He didn't look up. "Yea, among many, many other's. It was the ultimate sacrifice. But the town is almost back to normal now."

"What happened to your sister?" reassurance

He looked up at me. "She is in the same spot she started-with Stefan, on some mission in God knows where. Maybe I should introduce you; she's headed back here any day now. You should probably meet the rest of us _night dwellers_."


	4. Chapter 3: Salvatore Boarding House

**Chapter 3: Salvatore Boarding House**

* * *

><p>After a well-planned tour of the town and a completely unhealthy and deep-fried dinner at a nearby grill, Jeremy Gilbert gave me my key and informed me of my current zombie-like state. I entered the Gilbert house while Jeremy disappeared outside. I groggily managed to shower and make it into my temporary bed before everything went black around me.<p>

I drifted into slumber.

**_I opened my eyes and was met with gray._**

**_Everything was silent, everything was grey; there was no wind and there were no clouds. I sat up and realized I'd been sleeping on dark, dead grass. A tiny yellow leaf tried to peek out here and there, but over all the flooring were two mutual colors of straw and dirt._**

**_A breeze picked up, cold, dry, and gloomy like the grey sky. The land expanded only into black with no change in horizon. _**

**_The sound of a flapping wing sounded from behind and turning to the sound, the figure was back. I stood immediately at finding the new presence. I took a step back and observed the unmoving form._**

**_He stood at medium stature but not straight. He was slouched slightly, a thick wooden bar extending from his chest again. _**

**_"H-hello?" I shakily called. _**

**_The form suddenly vanished. Startled, I took another step back, but something caught my eye quickly, I flew a step to the side, away and facing the form. He'd moved. I wanted to run. This wasn't a human, he couldn't be. He was silent as air and light as a feather. He was cold as ice and quick as lightning flash. He wasn't human._**

**_He slowly began to raise his head and instinctively I took another step back. I always expected a face of a demon and eyes of a devil, but what met my gaze broke all expectations._**

**_He had the face of almost an angel. His hair was dark; black as night._**

**_His eyes were a blue-grey, almost clear and light as crystal or ice._**

**_But his skin though still greyed and dry was much younger this time…__ softer…fresher._**

**_"Who are you?" My voice trembled in fear, but he didn't answer. He just kept starring at me, and frozen in his gaze I didn't realize he wasn't breathing and I was being draw towards him. _**

**_"What are you?" I repeated as his gaze shifted downward before rising back to my eyes. I involuntarily took a step forward._**

**_"Who are you?" I repeated once more, this time without realizing it was a whisper. I had a sudden unexplainable urge to get closer, but in the instant I went to move, his face suddenly changed to a monster with blood-red eyes, black veins circling his eye sockets. He smiled a wicked, deadly smile revealing those similar bright, long fangs. __Vampire._**

**_"Wha-" he lunged forwards in and instant, his fangs into my skin and I screamed._**

I jumped out of bed suddenly and woke in a new room.

My heart was racing wildly, blood pounding and rushing violently in my ears like a hurricane. My skin was covered in a thick sheet of sweat. My veins felt like ice, and I looked franticly around this strange space.

It took me a moment to realize the room inside the Gilbert house. To the left was a window where a deep, gold glow was illuminating through thick cream-colored blinds. To the right was the closed, white door inside one of four white walls.

Four, white, walls. I was in four _empty_ white walls, not a grey expanse of nothingness with a deadly….

Someone knocked lightly on my door and I jumped. My heart was beating so fast, I was beginning to feel faint.

"Elle?" A familiar voice rose from the other side of the door, and I instantly recognized it.

"Jeremy," I breathed in a sigh of relief. I quickly made my way to the door and opened it to reveal a pajama-clad Jeremy Gilbert. _I didn't know vampires slept._

"Are you ok?" He asked peering around the room from the door but not entering. "I heard you scream." He was eyeing me strangely.

My heartbeat was starting to return to normal by then, but it was still elevated enough to make my breathing uneven. "Yea," I answered quickly. "I'm fine. It was just a dream."

His expression didn't change.

"I've been having a dream of this…" I contemplated letting Jeremy Gilbert in on the new discovery to my dream-haunting figure, but wondered if it would be strange telling a vampire I had nightmares of a vampire. "…Figure," I finally finished the thought.

"A vampire?"

Apparently there was no use keeping secrets from a vampire-or in the least from Jeremy Gilbert. I didn't even need to say it; I just shook my head meekly. It was silent in the space and cold, but I just felt Jeremy's thoughts filling the air.

"We need to meet with Stefan as soon as possible. They called me a few hours ago. We should go; the sooner the better."

My head was spinning. "What? Why? I mean…"

"Don't worry about it," his voice reassured but his presence was contradicting. "You just came here with no idea as to why or how, meet a vampire in the first hour in town, and now are dreaming of vampires. If I've learned anything living in Mystic Falls its nothing is a coincidence."

"You think…"

"With them," he cut me off quickly. "Don't worry about it right now. We don't know if the walls can hear us here, so we'll discuss this later with Stefan."

* * *

><p>"You know, I'm going to have to get groceries or something at some point or I'll be broke in no time," I told Jeremy after finishing my bagel as we stepped out of his car in front of the Salvatore Boarding House. Closing the door behind me, I starred at the entrance of the boarding house and felt a chill run through my spine. "That's…ominous," I muttered too quietly for ears to hear.<p>

"Don't worry, if the boogey man pops out you've got a house full of vampires to protect you," Jeremy replied as we made our way to the front door. Jeremy didn't bother knocking on the door; he opened it with a loud creak and motioned for me to step inside first.

"Just so you know, this is the part in a horror film when the audience screams at the damsel not to enter the house."

Jeremy smirked. "We _are_ the horror story, Elle."

I smiled meekly as the door closed behind Jeremy and we were met with a silent, empty hall. "Are you sure they're here?" I asked him quietly, but before I could say anything, a man instantly appeared next to me and I jumped reflexively backwards, right into Jeremy Gilbert.

"Sorry," the new man spoke quickly. "Jeremy told me you were a witch, so I…." he looked at me for an instant. "Never mind. Hi, I'm Stefan," he said extending a hand. I eyed at his arm nervously for a moment, wondering if I'd get the same bone-chilling feeling I got when I touched Jeremy. Taking the plunge, our hands met but instead of the freeze and fear I felt with Jeremy, a feeling of a sharp but warm wind blew through me. It was a welcome.

"Elouise Stingles, Elle for short," I introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you," he spoke calmly. "So you're a witch?" He spoke as all three of us walked towards a giant antique room resembling a living room or library of sorts. "And Jeremy said you have idea why you were brought here?"

"Uhh…not really."

"Jeremy!" A woman's voice suddenly sounded as a young woman walked in the room.

"Elena," Jeremy met Elena halfway through he room in a brotherly embrace. "Elle, this is my sister, Elena."

* * *

><p>Off in the corner, the three vampires in the house were conversing over everything I told them as I found myself reflecting over my own discoveries.<p>

Glancing over a wall of book, my head was swirling with information.

Mystic Falls was not only the home of a recent vampire showdown involving more magic and myth than I ever thought possible, but the town had a deep-rooted witch background too. This was the location of a hundred murdered witches and the resting place of the one witch with the power of those other dead hundred. "But I'm here why?" I asked myself skimming over the immense bookshelf. "Oh right, no one knows…" I sighed a deep breath of exasperation. It was time like these that felt like…my eyes caught a book with the family name, Salvatore. That sudden feeling that brought me to Mystic Falls began to pull at me.

Without so much as a second thought, I brought down the old book in curiosity. The book looked like an album in one way, and a family history in the other. Its binding was tattered and its leather cover dry and worn. Turning towards a table behind me however, I didn't hesitate to open the large book with crunch of papers. From afar, I was oblivious to the six eyes that grew silent and starred.

I flipped through the pages gently but swiftly.

Salvatore family…Giuseppe Salvatore and his deceased wife with too sons…1864 Damon returned while serving to protect the south….Stefan and Damon fond of Katherine Pierce…shot by their own father while trying to save vampires…Giuseppe killed by a vampire soon after... Stefan's portrait…Damon's portrait…

I froze. In my hands was a drawn portrait of Damon Salvatore. The familiar intense icy feeling spread throughout my body at that face as I realized I recognized it.

"Elle?" Jeremy called from behind.

I couldn't speak as I starred almost petrified at the black and white portrait before turning lethally slow at the three faces watching me.

"Who is this?" I asked in a shaky voice with the portrait in front of me.

Stefan was the one to speak. "That's Damon. He's my brother."

It was what I thought it was. "I need to meet him. How can I get a hold of him?"

No spoke for a moment.

"Elle," this time Elena was the one to speak. "Damon's dead."

The words were heard but the couldn't register properly. "No," I sounded. "I know I have to meet him. I've been dreaming about him for weeks."

"Elle, Damon died over seventeen years ago."

"No, no, no, no…" This wasn't making sense. It was a feeling of being so close yet s far… "I-I, I have to talk to him. This is the whole reason why I'm here."

"Listen," Elena's face was suddenly millimeters away from mine. Her eyes started to turn red and grow those same black veins spreading across her eyes. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but we've had enough bitches coming around looking for Damon. He's gone, and he's been gone for a while, but you will _not_ come in to my city and try and tarnish the only man who kept us all here in the first place."

"Elena, get off-" Jeremy pulled roughly at his sister.

"No!" She snarled at him almost animalistic-like. From close by, Stefan was watching the events intently, ready to intervene.

"You want to stay alive to finish you're stupid oblivious life, and you get the hell out of my city and leave Damon's name to rest. You can come here and prod at whatever myth you'd like, but you will _not_ ruin Damon Salvatore's name."

"Elena, come on now," Stefan finally intervened. He calmed Elena down and pulled her away as she returned back to a human shape. My body was convulsing in tremors.

"Elle, are you…" Jeremy began eyes my insane fear.

I opened my mouth to speak, but then the fear finally consumed me. My knees gave out under me, and my entire body fell into black. Someone called my name as my sight faded to black.

**_There was a rumbling in the distance. A wind bit my face gently with wisps of my hair as my eyes fluttered open. Fresh green grass itched at my skin and nostrils…but everything was grey. The crisp grass smelled sweet and fresh yet it was yellow and dead in appearance. The sky above rumbled once more as I pressed against the floor tiredly to lift my body to a sitting position._**

**_Looking around, it became apparent how different this dream was from the others. Grass expanded in all directions; small blossoms littered the covering in specks. A lone leafless tree stood dark and grey against the light grey sky. Beside this tree however, the figure was present once more._**

**_I jumped up and a step back immediately upon seeing the figure. His back was towards me, his body facing the empty skies, dark, black hair occasional floating in the wind. The sky trembled with another small rumble of thunder. Part of my brain expected the figure to attack, but something else deep inside me prevented me from running away. I shouted instead._**

**"_W-who are you?" My voice shook with a tinge of fear and a spark of cold._**

**"_I could ask you the same question," a smooth and silken voice floated in the wind. Perhaps it was the previous demonic nature of this man that had swayed my assumptions, but the calm and cool of the voice that reached my ears took me by surprise and I instinctively took a step forward._**

**"_I won't attack you anymore," he spoke once more unexpectedly._**

**_I opened my mouth to speak but no words left my mouth. Instead I began stepping ever closer to the figure. The thin piece of wood still protruded from his back as always before. As I got closer, that familiar coppery smell of blood grew strong._**

**"_Who are you?" I asked once more with a newfound courage._**

**_He stood quiet and still. If it had not been for the previous movement and voice, he would have resembled a statue._**

**"_Why…"_**

**"_You're a witch," he spoke once more in the chillingly calm voice. Swallowing my fears, I finally stepped up next to him and observed him. He was starring out into the nothingness of the grey sky. His nose was straight and slightly pointed, his jaw a little tight and well sculpted, and his eyebrows meeting in concentration in the center of his forehead._**

**"_You're a witch," he repeated._**

**_Again I opened my mouth to speak, but when no words came out, I just nodded._**

**"_I've been sitting here, dead, for almost twenty years and never once saw something I didn't think up myself here."_**

**"_Where are we?" I finally managed to speak. My voice came out in a squeak and he finally looked at me sideways. He glanced at the spot on the floor next to him, back up at my eyes, and then back out into the distance._**

**"_My own personal hell," he spoke low._**

**_I watched him for a moment, his hair dark against his pale, smooth skin. His eyes were so light and clear they were almost ghostly. Unlike the previous blue, they were grey this time; empty._**

**"_Why are we here?"_**

**_He didn't even glance towards me. "Old question."_**

**_I watched him a moment more before I finally took the plunge and confirmed my earlier realization at the boarding house._**

**"_Damon?" I asked quietly._**

**_This time his whole face turned towards me._**

**"_Now that is definitely new."_**

* * *

><p><em>Author's Comment:<em>

Hey guys, Liz here! (aka Diggy) So now we all finaly know what happened to Damon-and probably good few of you had actually figured it out before, but I hope you still enjoyed the first twist of the story. No, as you can tell, even though Damon is dead, he is obviously still going to be a big part of the story (in case you missed the part where he's listed as a main character) and obviously now you should know it isn't just a coincidence that Elle is a witch who just so happens to be dreaming of our dreamy dead Vamp. All will be told in time though, and now that I've planned out how everything works in this crazy plot I have planned, I can't wait to get to the good stuff. If you think Elee's dreams are crazy now, wait till they become more interesting than reality.  
>In the meantime, stay tuned for more and feel free to ask any questions or post a theory you may have-given that it doesn't disrupt the plot, I'll answer anything.<br>Hope you enjoyed this extremely long chapter! (And that it was worth the wait.)  
>~ Liz<p> 


	5. Chapter 4: Magic

**Chapter 4: Don't Underestimate Me**

_I watched him a moment more before I finally took the plunge and confirmed my earlier realization at the boarding house._

"_Damon?" I asked quietly._

_This time his whole face turned towards me._

"_Now that is definitely new."_

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>Damon…Salvatore?" I confirmed once more. He was starring at me intently, as if waiting to see what else I would say or do. He didn't move as he starred, and I shifted my weight uncomfortably. Our eye contact broke for a moment as I glanced down at my shoes and when I looked back up I almost jumped out of my skin as he was barely an inch away from me. How didn't I feel that?<strong>_

_**He was…observing. He would move his head a bit as he observed every part of me, a devilish smirk on his ever more handsome face. He stepped to the side and proceeded to circle around me like a predator. I felt goose bumps race across my skin.**_

"_**Y-you're dead…" I stated rather than ask. Again he didn't answer, just circled and watched.**_

"_**I met you brother-"**_

"_**Stefan, " he cut me off before I could speak another syllable. "So you're alive," his words were too a statement.**_

_**I swallowed the fear I felt constricting my throat. "Of course."**_

_**His eyebrow rose almost dramatically and he stopped in front of me, eye-to-eye. "Of course you'd be alive when I'm dead. Of course," he repeated.**_

_**Now he was just making fun of me.**_

"_**You're not an original," he began circling again. "And you're not entirely human." Again, this was not a question. "What are you?" He finally asked.**_

_**I starred up into his eyes but I dared not speak. He moved his face so close to mine his nose almost brushed the skin of my own. "What are you?"**_

_**Years and years of being taught by my aunt the craft of magic had always enlisted a code of secrecy in my blood, but as I starred into his eyes transfixed, my head was cleared of all thoughts and reasoning.**_

"_**I'm a witch," the words spilled out of my mouth almost robotically.**_

"_**A witch, why am I not surprised," he answered coolly, his piercing eyes still starring deep into mine. "You are not afraid of me," he spoke low.**_

_**I felt my entire body suddenly relax and calm. "I am not afraid of you," the words repeated in my voice.**_

"_**You will tell me everything you know," he spoke again.**_

"_**I will tell you everything I know."**_

"_**What is you name, little witch?" he finally spoke in a normal tone and breaking eye contact. A devilish smile began to play on his dry lips.**_

"_**Elouise Stingles," I answered without thought. "Elle for short."**_

_**He didn't respond. "How old are you?"**_

"_**I just turned 21," I replied again with no thought. A strange feeling began to grow over me; it was a strange new sensation…**_

"_**How strong are you?" He asked this time.**_

"_**I've been learning since I was 4. I have the power of my departed great aunt who was very powerful." The feeling grew, and something in my head began to register what it was.**_

"_**So you're not just a witch, but a powerful one at that. How did you get here?"**_

"_**I'm dreaming." It was a feeling of restraint…**_

"_**How did you know who I was?"**_

"_**I saw…" A feeling of will…. "A picture."**_

"_**Where?" **_

"_**I…." I registered the sensation: it was a feeling of losing one's own will. "I...in…" I blinked my eyes and all the restraints disappeared. Immediately I felt the overwhelming sensation of betrayal. My skin turned icy and my bones felt rigid: I was petrified in fear.**_

"_**Where did you see this picture?" He came closer to me still; eyes intense and I suddenly noticed his pupils dilate in a strange pattern.**_

_**Before I could even register the words I mumbled, everything exploded. A male voice screamed in pain, a body flew across the air, the space exploded in flames….**_

* * *

><p>I opened my eyes. Three pairs of eyes were starring at me.<p>

"Elle!" Jeremy's voice sounded with relief as strong arms hoisted my back up to a sitting position. The floor seemed to spin wildly and my ears pounded to the point where I felt myself slip in to the blackness again before someone caught me.

"Damn Elena, you could have killed her!" Jeremy's voice growled.

"I didn't even touch her, Jer!"

"No…" I spoke weakly. "I'm fine, really…" _Or I will be as soon as the floor stops spinning._

"What happened there? You were just standing there when Elena…_startled _you and then you just fell, cold."

Feeling the power in my veins start to release slowly, I mumbled inaudibly under my breath. I felt my head begin to clear, and the pounded began to fade. Everything slowed until the world stopped spinning around me and I opened my eyes now stable. "All better, see?"

Jeremy, Elena and Stefan were starring at me in amazement.

"You healed yourself," Stefan spoke up in a statement. I felt the urge to inform him he spoke in statements just like his brother, but I needed to know what was dangerous territory first.

"Yea, old trick I picked up from my aunt." The three vampires still starred.

"I swear, I'm fine. See?" I stood up quickly and took a dozen steps forward before spinning swiftly and returning to my previous spot. "All healed."

"Bonnie couldn't heal anyone," Elena said.

"That's not true," Jeremy spoke in a matter-of-fact voice.

"No," Stefan interjected. "She couldn't heal until she got the power of a hundred witches, and even then she needed to call them to do it."

"Bonnie, the witch?" I asked. Everyone starred at me again. _I'm turning into the town freaky._

"Elle, how old are you?" Stefan asked. A tiny thought ran through my head as I recognized the question from the other Salvatore in my dream.

"I just turned 21," I answered as before, this time with my own free will.

"How long have you known you were a witch?" He continued.

"Since I was four and set a stuffed animal on fire." With that, a smirk appeared on Jeremy's handsome face. "Honestly though, I was probably born a witch. My social worker told me my relatives or ancestors or something were from Salem, so I'm guessing it ran in the family."

"You're adopted?" Jeremy asked incredulously.

"Yep," I answered popping the 'p' loudly.

"So how did you learn magic?"

"My great aunt. She was a witch, and she gave me her grimoire before she died." Stefan and Elena were watching me with a strange expression. "What?" I asked quizzically.

Stefan and Elena shared a glance before looking back at me. "Are you sure about this, Elle?" Stefan asked. It dawned at me at that moment what their expressions were saying: they were looks of distrust.

"You...don't believe me…" I concluded.

"Its not that we don't believe you, Elle…"

"No, no, I get it," I spoke quickly. "I totally get it. I'm some psycho bitch witch coming into your town speaking nonsense about your dead brother and ex lover," Elena cringed. "So I'm obviously out to kill everyone in this little shit town and make sure _history repeats itself._" For an instant everyone was frozen, starring at the full dose of Elle Stingles that had just been splattered into their lives. And then almost instantaneously Elena lunged inhumanly fast and then fell straight to the floor. Her eyes starred open, her mouth slightly ajar with the crazed expression from her lunge frozen on her face as she lay completely motionless. Before Stefan could even move, he froze himself, falling all his weight slouched back in his seat. Jeremy was the quickest: seeing the others fall, he didn't bother to move.

"Let me just warn you of one thing: I don't know what _witches_ you've encountered before, but I don't make the same mistake twice. The next time one of you attacks me, you'll be a lot worse off than a burst vertebrae and temporary paralyses.

I walked down the hall and through the doorway. From fifty feet away, the door slammed shut on its own with three bewildered minds behind me. I'd never used such a dangerous spell before and most certainly never on a vampire so I had no way of knowing how long they were going to stay down before their spines healed themselves.

"Time to leave this hell hole," I muttered walking towards the Gilbert house and my car. Chances were they wouldn't attack me in broad daylight.

_Cooking show…Reality TV…Pawnshop show…does this whole state have crappy TV?_ Groaning loudly I flipped over onto my side and glanced at the bright red numbers of the hotel clock. 4:26 am.

I groaned loudly and sat up. "Great," I muttered aloud to myself. "I fall asleep, a vampire kills me in a dream. I stay awake, a vampire will kill me while I'm half awake." I was really in a problem. Exasperated I stood up and walked to the window. Starring out the dark green curtains, a light rain was patting softly against the windowpane. The coolness of the dark weather made everything outside misty, and the road and surrounding twinkled as they reflected lights from signs and cars off the raindrops and puddles. _Reminds me of the day Aunt Lisa died…_

And then the idea popped into my head and with a mile spreading my face I quickly crossed the room to my one packed backpack and carefully unpacked that old, large parchment book. As I made my way back to the bed, five candles floated out of the backpack and then frozen in a circle around me as I sat in the center of the mattress, Indian-style. The candles illuminated simultaneously and the book opened itself.

"Ok, how about…." I closed my eyes and thought for a moment. _A sleep-dream spell?_ I opened my eyes but the book hadn't moved. _A spirit-repelling spell? _Opening my eyes again, nothing had moved. _Right Elle, he's a vampire, they don't have human souls. What spell could I possibly use to keep this monster away from my dreams?_

I just needed to live through the night, and I knew exactly how to do that.

_I need and protection spell. A spell to keep Damon Salvatore at bay, away from me like a mosquito net, keeping him at a distance. A wind blew through the room suddenly, my hair flinging violently in the air, the flames of the candles exploding like fireworks, the pages of the parchment book filtering through until stopping at the page. I opened my eyes in the storm and saw the words of the incantation. My mind went fuzzy and cleared of all thoughts besides the words written on the page. The candles illuminated the entire room and then everything went dark. Every candles feel to the floor and mattress, out and cold._

_Well, _I thought to myself as I moved the book away and pulled the sheets over myself. The light went out with just a thought and the room filled with darkness. _Lets hope it works. _With that the deep spell of slumber took over me as I felt my mind float away into sleep…

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

I think I said this chapter was to be titled "Damon Salvatore" but I was wrong-chapter 5 is the one titled Damon Salvatore and its not yet finished. (Guess I was a chapter ahead.)

Anywho's, poor Elle is now so lost, stuck with a dead vampire in her dreams and three vampires who don't want her in the only town that could help her with her Damon problem. What will she do next?

Leave me anything ideas or feedback!

~ Liz


	6. Chapter 5: Damon Salvatore

**Chapter 5: Damon Salvatore**

* * *

><p><em><strong>All was silent, all was still. I wasn't thinking, I wasn't hearing, I wasn't seeing. All I sensed was a very weak, very subtle pulling feeling. I stirred in the blackness of closed lids but the bedding grew cold until I was forced to sleepily open my eyes. Bright blue eyes were starring at me with such an intensity, I did the first thing that came to mind-I screamed and the eyes and body attached immediately disappeared to several feet away dark under a shadow without a source. <strong>_

"_**Who the hell are you?" I shouted, attempting to get my heartbeat under control. The blue-eyed man began walking towards me and I recognized the figure immediately-it was Damon Salvatore.**_

"_**I thought we'd been through this, little witch."**_

_**I blinked at him now only a few feet away. Was he kidding me? Was he seriously playing this game with me?**_

"_**You're an ass," I told him loudly as I finally stood up. **_

"_**Yeah well, I'm also dead," he spoke matter-of-factly. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes but ignored the comment and got down to business.**_

"_**Ok, we need to getting something straight here, Dead Damon," he smirked at the nickname. "I don't know why you're haunting me…"**_

"_**Alright princess, I don't know why you think you are so special that I could possibly feel compelled to 'haunt' you," he smiled at the pun but didn't pause. "But I have done no such thing. You are the one that has been showing up randomly without any warning. You need to leave." He emphasized the last word threateningly and I almost laughed aloud at his joke.**_

"_**You're kidding, right?" I asked him incredulously. I took several steps towards him, but he winced as I got close, and stepped backwards, keeping a distance between us.**_

_** "Do you think I like being tormented by you?" I asked him, but he didn't answer. "You are some dead demon that's been haunting my sleep every night. I haven't been able to get one dreamless night without you haunting me," I told him aggressively. "And then I end up in your town with your brother and your friend/lover/whatever..."**_

_** "Elena," his voice fell soft. His eyes softened and his whole frame relaxed. I was almost taken back at the sudden transformation from a monster to a man at loss.**_

"_**And Elena." I began now more gently. He swallowed at my words and dropped his eyes for a moment before gaining eye contact again. "I tried to tell them I was dreaming of you and Elena nearly decapitated me." A saddened smile hit his face. "They're very protective of you."**_

"_**Funny how that only happens when you're dead," he retorted coldly.**_

_**I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes at him, but his tone was giving away his tattered emotions. **_

"_**Well from what I understand, they're very thankful of what you did when you were alive." He burst into a sarcastic laugh.**_

"_**Oh really?" he quipped bitterly. "I'm sure they're positively ecstatic of all the murders and destroyed families and histories I caused in my 200 years of existence."**_

"_**Well," I began uneasily. "They seem to think you did something to redeem yourself for all your flaws because I almost died today just mentioning your name." He eyed me sideways. "I mean I had to take down your crazed ex-slash-friend and brother today-"**_

"_**You didn't hurt them?" He questioned quickly.**_

"_**No, Damon, I just paralyzed them. A dark trick I learned a few years back-you burst a vertebrae in their spine and it paralyzes them. I figured if they're immortal like Jeremy said," Damon smirked at the new name mentioned. "Then they'd be able to heal quickly-but not in enough time for me to flee that God-forsaken town of yours."**_

"_**So you met Jeremy too?"**_

_**I let out a loud breath of exasperation. "Seriously? Of everything I've told you all you're picking up on are the names I've been dropping."**_

"_**Honey," he began taking a step forward but then wincing and backtracking immediately with an annoyed expression. "First of all, could you please do me the greatest honor," what a jackass. "Of taking down that damn shield of yours?"**_

_**I just starred at him and his bright blue eyes. I was about to ask what shield he had to stop mid-sentence to ask me to remove before I remembered the spell cast right before I fell asleep.**_

"_**I don't know, Damon. If I take down this spell who's to say you aren't going to attack me or rape me or compel me or something?"**_

_**His expression grew dark. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to piss off a vampire?" He said darkly.**_

"_**Hasn't anyone informed you that you're dead?" I replied immediately.**_

_**This time he took a step forward but didn't retreat. I saw his skin start to turn red. "Fuck you." His eyes were starring into mine intensely as I watched his skin start to bubble. **_

"_**Don't flatter yourself." Welts began forming across his skin, smoke and almost steam started to emit from the sores. His skin was burning under the spell. I was about to watch Damon Salvatore burst into flames in front of me, and I wanted to call his bluff that he would stay there until it happened, but I couldn't do it. I immediately muttered the incantation under my breath and the shield fell down. Damon swayed forward ever so slightly but almost instantaneously his skin started to heal itself.**_

"_**Next time I won't take it down."**_

"_**If it were up to me there wouldn't be a next time."**_

"_**You attack me Salvatore, and I'll take you down." I warned.**_

"_**Honey," he started stepping towards me. "I've been dead for seventeen years. What could you possibly do to someone already dead?" I didn't say anything and he took another step towards me. "And how is it that you just so happen to start popping into my 'limbo' like this? I've been sitting here for seventeen years and nothing has happened that I didn't make happen."**_

"_**If I knew that, trust me, I wouldn't still be standing here every time I want to get a little shut-eye. Bu you know what," I started more loudly before, feeling the anger bubbling in my body. "If I were really smart I would have just found a spell to make you disappear permanently by now."**_

"_**Don't do me any favors," he replied coldly. Taken aback I turned towards him my arms still frozen in the air like a lunatic. He was sitting on a chair now that had not been there seconds earlier.**_

"_**What?" I asked incredulously.**_

"_**You're not very bright, are you, witch?" I squinted my eyes and opened my mouth to bite back quickly but he raised a finger of silence and continued with a more surprising admission. "Do you honestly think I like being here? That I enjoy wasting eternity in a frozen state in this completely emptiness?"**_

_**I wanted to reply with something but all I did was close my mouth.**_

"_**I thought being a vampire was a curse, but I was at least living. I've been sitting here, in this mind-made world for every moment of every second of ever minute of 17 years. You don't sleep, you don't feed-or eat," he added quickly. "You don't have company, you don't have sights, you don't have sounds, and you just exist in this endless expanse of nothing." His face was wild with expression, his eyes burned with a mixture of hidden emotions, shielded under animated eyebrows.**_

"_**This is my own personal hell," he added at last. "Not that I don't deserve it, I know. I died thinking I would never wake again-never have to live again-but then I open my eyes and I'm in this…space!"**_

"_**I doubt you deserve this," I replied lowly.**_

"_**Oh really?" He spoke arrogantly with a twist of an eyebrow and several angry steps forward. His face was inches from mine.**_

"_**You have no idea what I've done in the past," he whispered so chillingly I felt my skin grow cold. "I've killed more people in a month than you've met in your entire life." His eyes weren't blue anymore; they were a greenish-grey, intense in fury and a mix of pain. "I've killed men, women, and probably even children in my lifetime. I've seduced beautiful girls and then killed them in ecstasy. I've compelled people to do my dirty work before. I've killed almost every single person my brother ever cared about."**_

"_**And yet you're in pain," I stated.**_

_**His stare intensified. His eyes began turning red, black veins distorted his handsome face, his lips thinned and when he opened his mouth his canines were prominent.**_

"_**Don't underestimate me, witch," he growled devilishly. "I don't feel pain for anything or anyone but myself." Any other human being at this point would have run for their life-escaped the enraged fury of Damon Salvatore-and yet, for whatever crazed reason, I stood my ground.**_

"_**You're a liar too," I said surprisingly quietly. His nostrils flared but I raised my hand both in a sign of ruthless trust and as a threat to keep his distance. "You want to scare me into thinking you're an evil being and soulless, yet I almost really died today because there are at least two people down their on earth that love you so much, they couldn't even hear your name."**_

_**He was breathing heavily, a strange act since I had never watched his take a breath in all the dreams I'd dreamed. His stance didn't change, but the veins faded away and the whites of his eyes whitened again.**_

"_**If you're so evil, you must of done one hell of a feat to leave such an impression on people." I told him honestly. "So why don't we call it a truce here and you cut the 'I'm undeserving' shit and we have a civil conversation?"**_

"_**Vampires aren't civil creatures," he replied smugly.**_

_**I had to smirk. "Neither are witches, Salvatore."**_

_**He remained starring intensely, eye to eye in silence. His stance wasn't much dangerous any longer, however. After what seemed a century however, he finally moved, standing tall and straight but never breaking eye contact. "Its Damon," he answered more calmly this time.**_

_**I couldn't help to finally spread a smile-this would be a truce. "Elle," I replied.**_

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>How do you do that?" I questioned as he sat on a sofa that had never been there before.<strong>_

"_**I control this place," he answered as if the answer were obvious. He reclined on the ornate and antique lounger like he had no cares in the world. His expression, however, contradicted his pose.**_

"_**So this is kind of like a dream?"**_

_**I could almost feel him roll his eyes. "Its kind of like a dream for you," his voice was arrogant again. "It's more like a compulsion. When I compel a vision or a dream, I create everything in that world the same way I think of this one. I want it to snow, its starts to snow." I was about to question his words when something very cold touched my skin. I looked up in wonder and watched the sky raining tiny white flecks of ice. It was snowing.**_

_**We sat quiet for a moment, awkwardly yet peaceful at the same time.**_

_**"I know you don't want me here Damon, but you should believe me when I tell you that I never wished for this too."**_

"_**Too bad that doesn't stop it from happening," he replied. "You should go back to Mystic Falls," he finally spoke after a while.**_

"_**And how would you know I left?"**_

_**He turned his head towards me, arms still folded over his chest with the rest of his unmoving body. He raised a knowing eyebrow and I felt my eyes roll again.**_

"_**You're too smart for your own good, Salvatore."**_

"_**If I were smart I'd have died centuries ago," he retorted, sitting up this time. I felt a strange sensation. A wave of sleepiness settled over me. "I think I'm waking up," I announced.**_

_**"You've been here a while. Just go back to Mystic Falls. Talk to Jeremy and Stefan first-Elena doesn't mean harm, she's just protective. She'll always put her family in front of her, and when you don't have any family left, the few people you do still have becomes your family..."**_

_**It was difficult to keep my eyes open now. My limbs and eyes were growing increasingly heavy. "You'll..." I had to fight the sleep. "You'll be here...later?"**_

_**He smiled, the first natural smile. "Where else would I go?"**_

_**And with that I let my eyes close and everything floated away.**_


	7. Chapter 6: Back to the Falls

**Chapter 6: Back to the Falls**

* * *

><p>Saying that I, Elouise Stingles, was apprehensive about returning to Mystic Falls after the…<em>argument<em> between myself and the three Mystic vampires would have been the understatement of the century. As I found myself back in my beat-up little car on the way back to the Falls at one in the afternoon however, I struggled to keep the mental images of three vampires all attacking at once as far back in my mind as possible.

Then again, the chances of reaching all three at once during the day would probably be unlikely. It was strange to think I had seen them come outside during the day. Perhaps my mythology was askew, but I always thought vampires burnt in the sun or something. Apparently these Mystic Falls residents were impervious to the suns rays. None the less, something told me they weren't going to reveal to the city that they were vampires any time soon. After all, the town had a history.

After mentally replaying all these ideas, I finally came to the conclusion that reaching Jeremy first would likely be my best bet. He hadn't ever _really _attempted to cause me harm. The thought didn't calm my heart however as I drove through that roundabout before the Gilbert house neighborhood.

"Buck up Elle, you can do this." I pulled onto the curb in front of the Gilbert house and killed the engine. My heart was pounding like drum. I stepped out of the car and attempted to control my breathing as I approached the door.

_This is stupid. This is so stupid. I'm going to get myself killed…_ The thoughts were clouding my head, roaring through my ears and constricting my throat. I had to do this though, and before I could second guess myself I rang the doorbell.

The faint sound of a doorbell ring was emitted from the opposite side of the door. I waited.

Body weight grew heavy on one foot so I switched my balance to the other. By fingers were itchy so they picked each other. No sounds could be heard from inside the Gilbert house as my body grew restless and paranoid.

_Come on, Jeremy…_ I willed myself to think. But no one came to the door. I closed my eyes and took a moment to breathe deeply. _This is a good thing; this is a sign to stay away. _I opened my eyes to finally leave and when I turned around I screamed so loud and suddenly a crow up top the streetlight flew away in panic.

"Did I scare you?" Jeremy said so low I had to swallow back the chill in my bones. His eyes were dark, his face was rigid and he wasn't the laid-back Jeremy Gilbert I had met just three days ago.

"I-I…" I was stuttering again.

"If you want to pretend not to be terrified, stuttering is not the way to do it." I stepped around me and unlocked the front door, a brown paper bag in one arm, he opened the door with the other, holding it open for me. I didn't move.

"It would be stupid for me to attack you in my own home, Elle," he told me bluntly.

"It would be even more stupid for you to attack me out here where everyone could see." His expression didn't change. He stayed frozen in his position, one arm with a bag, the other holding the door, feet an inch from the threshold of the home, waiting for me to enter. If it weren't for the soul-less vampire hiding under his inviting skin, his stance would have resembled that of a stubborn teenager.

"If I meant you any harm, Elle, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

I kept our eyes locked. "Why'd your sister threaten me after hearing Da-"

"Inside," he cut me off. "That's a conversation for _inside._"

Everything in my body was screaming to turn and run. I knew I was a witch and I could probably take down any _human_ being, but Jeremy wasn't a regular human being. Instinctively I took a step backwards, but our eye contact never faltered.

"I can wait here all day," he said dryly as I felt my restrain begin to crumble. His expression was unchanging and his body didn't so much as flinch, yet, this was still the Jeremy Gilbert that was charming and hospitable 48 hours ago.

"Elle, please," he asked again. This time I finally gained the courage to make a move. Timidly I stepped forward into the house. All the hair on my body stood straight as I entered down the entrance hall and Jeremy closed the door behind us. He eyed me with the same emotionless expression as he passed me and headed into the kitchen. I followed his path hesitantly.

"I never expected to see _you_ around here again," he spoke loudly with his back towards me as he proceeded to empty the bag on the counter one item at a time. Apparently Jeremy only bought alcohol and detergent. Leaving only the six pack on the island counter, he turned towards me, arms crossed. "What are you doing here Elle?"

"Would you believe me if I tried to explain?" I asked honestly. His look was intense.

"Better than my sister," he replied. "It depends on your story though."

I shifted uncomfortably. Was I ready to come clean? Could I trust Jeremy Gilbert and tell him how a vampire ghost was haunting my dreams?

"I've been having these dreams," I began slowly. He didn't blink. "Actually I think I've been having them for years, but they just started to become clearer and clearer until I arrived here." I shifted my position uncomfortably under his gaze but he didn't move. "The first night I was here I could finally make out a figure. He's medium height, black hair, dominant features, pale skin tone, and ice grey-blue eyes." Jeremy's expression finally shifted a bit, but so subtly I barely noticed.

"When I was at you sister's place the other day, I found an old Salvatore book and saw a picture of someone who looked exactly like the figure in my dream."

"Damon," Jeremy finally spoke. I nodded slowly and Jeremy closed his eyes and pulled his head back for a second as if being hit with troubling news. "So you think you're dreaming of Damon…"

"No," I spoke abruptly. "I _know_ I'm dreaming of Damon. He's confirmed it himself. He even somehow got me to tell him all these things I didn't want to like he was stealing away my free will…"

"Compulsion," Jeremy filled in. "He was probably compelling you. Damon was really good at that." Jeremy finally moved, turning slightly to pull out a chair in front of me and then a second across the counter for himself. I hesitantly stepped forward and then sat in the stool. I never even noticed how exhausted my body was.

"How do you know for certain its Damon?" Jeremy asked me again, finally less threatening than before.

"He told me so," I answered. "It was weird, I could never get him to talk at all, but then I found that picture of Damon and when I passed out and I asked him if he was Damon he finally spoke."

Jeremy was beginning to look genuinely curious and genuinely troubled. "What did he say?"

"Well," I began now rather bashfully. "He compelled me to tell him who I was, what I was doing there, what I knew and some other things before I broke out of it." Jeremy's eyes suddenly changed.

"What do you mean 'you broke out of it? You broke out of Damon's compulsion?"

I was confused. "Yea," I began slowly. "I mean I just felt like he was pulling away my free will and I gathered all my energy and just expelled it on him and broke it."

Jeremy's expression was unreadable.

"What?" I finally questioned.

"Nothing," he began still strange. "Its just…I've never heard of a human or witch who could _feel_ themselves being compelled more less _break it._"

"Well," it was my turn to be uncomfortable. "Maybe you've never met a witch as powerful as me." His stare was deafening.

"What aren't you tell me, Elle?" He asked slowly.

"I don't know what you mean," I lied. Jeremy's expression didn't change and a sudden fear shot through me that he could look right through my façade.

"You're only 21 yet you are more powerful than the one witch I knew and loved that had the power of 100 dead but seasoned witches. She couldn't take down a vampire as swiftly as you can and _no one_ could break a compulsion of a ten-year-old vampire, more less a 200-year-old vampire."

"I don't have an answer for that, Jeremy," I whispered this time. The room was cold and our conversation was icy.

He fidgeted his feet for a second. "Last question," he started off. "What exactly are you dreaming of Damon?"

"I'm not really…" It was hard t o explain. "Its not like I'm dreaming _of him,_ but like I'm dreaming _with him._"

Jeremy's expression finally revealed an emotion: confusion. "Elle, Damon's been dead for almost two decades," he told me.

"I know," I spoke soft. Jeremy looked at me like that wasn't an answer. "Honestly its like he's stuck in limbo or something. When I dream its this huge empty space that he's almost dreaming up himself."

"Limbo," Jeremy repeated. "You think he's stuck in _limbo._"

I finally had to roll my eyes. "I don't know what its called, it just he says he's got complete control of it like a dream he's compelling. That's how he explained it. He's been there since the day he died, but there isn't really a progression of time there."

"So he's alive in your dreams?" Jeremy questioned. The conversation seemed to be taking a turn for the cliché and sappy.

"No, not really," I answered honestly. "He died being staked, didn't he?"

Jeremy didn't answer.

"He's got a stake through his heart, and it bleeds like a wound," I described for him. "He walks, talks, everything, but he doesn't have a pulse, or a heartbeat, he doesn't breathe, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat and he doesn't even have to _blink_ according to him."

"Limbo." Jeremy was starring into my eyes. "A vampire limbo."

I didn't know what to say or how to act, so I did the first move that came to mind: I shrugged.

"How much do you know about vampires, Elle?" Jeremy suddenly interjected. I was almost taken back. "Has anyone ever told you what exactly makes a vampire a vampire and how they turn or die or anything?"

"All I know is what you've told me."

Jeremy finally broke a smirk, relaxing in his stool and opening a bottle on the counter. "Ok then," he said more calmly. "Lets have vampires 101."

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><p>The day was ending much better than it had begun. Jeremy spent over an hour informing me of his…<em>species.<em> He explained that a human had to die with vampire blood in their system to become a vampire and then choose to feed to complete the transition. With this however meant that humans relinquished their souls when they became vampires. Certain enchantments cast on garments or jewelry could protect a human from a vampire by healing them like vampire blood but keeping their souls intact. A soul and humanity was not the same thing however. Jeremy didn't explain Damon's death entirely, but he did confirm the stake in my dream had something to do with it.

"Alright Jere, here's the check. Can I help you guys with anything else?" The young waitress in blue smiled brightly. Mystic Falls was a _very_ small town.

"Nah we're good thanks, Claire," Jeremy told the young girl and she said her goodbyes before walking away to leave us alone once more. I reached for the check but it was already gone and firmly planted in Jeremy's hand with a bill poking out the top.

"Is this a date that I wasn't informed about?" I joked. "Seriously Jeremy, just let me pay."

"I got it," he said smoothly as he stood. "You save a lot of money when you don't really need to eat much and you sister dates a heir to a dead-end fortune. Come on, lets go," he beckoned me out of the grill letting me out the door first.

Outside the Bar and Grill the air was fresh and cool as it welcomed the incoming autumn season. When Jeremy had suggested we go to the grill so I could eat at least one good meal today I was hesitant to go. After leaving the house though I realized this was Jeremy's sign of trust. All the while these thoughts ran through my head we walked side by side down the Mystic Falls streets to where we had parked. Jeremy had his hands in his pockets and even though he was looking ahead it was obvious his thoughts were elsewhere.

We turned a corner where the street lights were out. I felt my skin prickle as the night grew significantly dark. Something caught the side of my vision suddenly and my head snapped back and I stopped in my place. Having heard my reaction, Jeremy did the same, his eyes now closely observing the scene.

"What is it?" He asked me quietly. It was as if the air grew instantly colder.

"I don't know…" I almost whispered. Nothing ahead moved. Nothing made a sound. In a far off corner across the street and towards the lights a couple walked happily hand in hand, but nothing seemed to move in this unlit portion.

"Probably nothing," I whispered as we turned to continue our trip. I took about four steps and then suddenly everything moved at once. In a singled instant Jeremy whipped me out of my standing location towards one building where I crumbled to the floor, grabbed a blur of figured and slammed the figure into the wall with such force the street boomed with the sound of a collision. His eyes were bright red, his muscles bulged under the immense power he exerted, black veins spread around his previously warm eyes and he barred his teeth. The figure in front of his was the exact same way.

"Who the hell are you?" Jeremy growled loud. I stayed from my half-seated position on the alley floor, frozen in a mixture of panic, bewilderment, and surprise. The ghostly-pale man's eyes were wild with predatory senses.

"She's a witch," he hissed demonically. In a blur of movement something flew in the air and an instant late the figure was pinned at another wall, Jeremy with a tight grip on a wooden stake pressing into the skin of the attacker's chest.

"Stay away from her, you here me? She's with me," He snarled viciously into the attackers face. The man was smiling maniacally, choking under Jeremy's hold but never dropping his evil grin.

"She's a _witch_-no good will come here when _her kind_ start prodding again." From the dark space I could almost make out Jeremy's eyes moving around franticly in confusion.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jeremy growled again. The attacker's smile grew again and a giant '_crack' _sounded through the crisp air and Jeremy screamed and he feel forward. The attacker was instantly three feet away, now starring down at me, the stake previously poised for a kill planted firmly in a one hand. His eyes almost glowed in the darkness of this evil grin. Jeremy was gasping in pain on the floor, his wrist that had previously been holding that stake now completely ben in the opposite direction. I was petrified-frozen in my position.

"History's come to repeat itself."

And then he was gone with a swish of the wind. Another loud crack and a groan and Jeremy starred up at me, his uninjured hand holding his broken wrist back in the appropriate position. The tiniest scent of coppery blood reached my nose as we starred at each other in bewilderment over what had just occurred.


	8. Chapter 7: Histories and Stories

Author's Note:

Hey guys, just a heads up, this chapter is kind of a filler. I hope you don't find it boring, but there are a few tiny details about to be mentioned he that will have a huge impact on the future chapters and plot. Also, a love triangle is going to sprout very shortly. Care to guess the participants? Take a guess!

Hope you at least somewhat enjoy the chapter and I'll try and update ASAP.

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><p><strong>Chapter 7: <strong>**Histories and Stories**

"_History's come to repeat itself."_

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><p>Those five little words were beginning to climb the list of torment in my life-right about Stefan and Elena's distrust, and right below dead Damon Salvatore's limbo world. Speaking of which, the rather cocky old vampire had little to say about the whole ordeal. Whatever had happened in this God-forsaken town's past had apparently emotionally scared everyone-even the self-centered dead vampire with a faux bravado exterior. Everyone seemed to avoid saying anything about the actual "history" of the unspeakable events, but all seemed to agree on one detail: it was a supernatural world war packed into one city. What a coincidence I would end up in the heart of said city 17 years later.<p>

From down stairs the front door opened for a second and then closed. No footsteps could be heard through the paper-thin home, but cabinets and a fridge made noise as someone opened the kitchen's main features.

I breathed deeply and starred at the ceiling. _What was I doing here? Was I really so eager to find danger I had to come to what apparently was the center of the supernatural world? Why would I ever be led to a place I was so obviously unwanted? Why did I ever listen to señor Salvatore of Limbo and stay in this hell hole?_ Frustrated and now annoyed I groaned loudly and turned over in my bed. Some loose strands of messy hair feel over my face and I blue this away irritably. The clock on my dresser read 9:15. Well, whatever the reason I was guided to Mystic Falls I doubted sleeping in was the reason.

I sat up and out of bed and the smell of caffeine hit my senses, bringing a smile to my lips. I quickly pulled on a bra and a pair of jeans. I had half my shirt on as I opened my bedroom door and headed down the stairs.

"Morning," Jeremy's voiced echoed in the kitchen before I could even round the corner.

"Uhh…morning?" I was a little confused when I entered the room and noticed groceries on the counters and coffee brewing.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say you don't really eat much?" I questioned as I curiously inspected the specimens. Some very sugary cereal, low-fat milk, half a dozen eggs, bread and deli cuts. Looked an awful lot like my apartment's refrigerator.

"I said I don't eat _much, _not _not at all." _He looked up at me with a much friendlier expression than yesterday afternoon. "But you do," he added while emptying a bag. "So this is mainly for you." He smiled again and I suddenly felt very flattered and bashful.

"Wow," I said low now eyeing the much-too-sugary-for-kids cereal. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that. I smiled brightly as I said the words though and helped myself to a bowl and mug. It was like Jeremy Gilbert knew exactly what I liked: lots of sugar, no cooking requirements.

"Mmm," I half moaned with my first bite. "God, I am always so starving in the morning," I spoke with half a mouth full of cereal. Jeremy didn't say anything but just gave a reassuring half smile and I felt the sudden urge to be reprimanded for such foul manners.

"I'm sorry about what happened last night," he spoke suddenly.

I paused with the spoon half way to my mouth.

"I mean, I never really warned you about how unwelcome new supernatural beings are in this town-particularly witches."

I quickly swallowed the bit of breakfast in my mouth at this new development and sudden shift in conversation. "Have there been a lot of witch attacks here?"

"Not exactly," he answered. "But in the history of this time, nine times out of ten, when a new and relatively powerful witch or warlock shows up here, they're usually working for someone far more dangerous."

"These are the Gilbert journals," Jeremy said and the books all toppled onto the couch noisily. "Plus a few other Gilbert family trinkets."

"Oh," I said with surprise sitting on the couch and folding my feet in under my body on the cushions. "So you're family not only has vampires but history behind it too." Jeremy smirked and sat at the opposite end of the couch, the books between us.

"Actually the Gilbert family are notorious for vampire hunters. In 1864 John Gilbert, who wrote these journals," he held up a book. "Was a very well known vampire hunter and inventor of anti-vampire tools. Too bad for him he sucked at his hunt and all his inventions never worked because of him but because other such as the witch Emily Bennett was bewitching said inventions to work." In his had was what looked like a compass or pocket watch. "This tracks vampires," he spoke while now lifting a small box. "And this will emit a sound that only vampires and werewolves can hear-and it will incapacitate anyone who does for a few block's radius."

"Ok, so we'll just stay away from that one for your sake."

Jeremy smiled at my humor as he flipped through a journal. "You said you think your ancestors were from Salem?" He asked me as I rummaged through the antiques between us.

"I mean its had to know for sure, but I think so. My aunt's family was from Salem and she was a witch so either someone told me that once or my mind naturally made a bridge between that information."

"How is it that you even have an aunt by blood relation if you're adopted?"

This time I had to pause and think for a moment. "I don't really know. My aunt-actually a great aunt-always convinced me we were blood related and for whatever reason, everyone just went along with it."

Jeremy was quiet as he mulled over the words. "Do _you_ think its true?"

"I don't know," I answered softly. "I mean she was always a part of my family, but I always wondered how she would have ever even found me after I was adopted."

"How old were you when you were adopted?" I was beginning to see a trend with Jeremy Gilbert and his questioning personality.

"Oh, I was adopted at like 4 months old. My parents adopted me because they couldn't have kids-and they never found out I was a witch."

The last part surprised Jeremy. "Elena's technically my cousin. She was adopted too, of course she didn't find _that_ out until she was seventeen."

"Ouch," I voiced.

"Yea," Jeremy agreed. "Those few years right after my parent's death were…pure nightmares. Being orphaned was bad enough, but then all the supernatural things came to happen, Elena fell in love with Stefan, Damon reeked havoc on the city and unleashed an entire tomb full of hundreds-of-years-old vampires, we started attracting all sorts of unwanted company, it was hectic. In the middle of all that Elena found out she wasn't actually my blood sister, she was the daughter of my uncle and the ex-wife of a man dating our guardian and aunt at the time, and that she was a supernatural decendent of the woman that drove Damon and Stefan Salvatore to become vampires almost two hundred years ago."

"Damn," I muttered at all the information. "What do you mean she was supernatural though? I thought you guys were all human before the vampire thing?"

"We were, sort of. Elena was a _doppelganger_, a technically supernatural being who was essentially just an average human that is an identical duplicate of an ancestor. In her case, she was the doppelganger of the woman who's blood sealed the first vampire's curse, _and_ the woman who turned the Salvatore Brothers."

"Damn," I repeated again and an amused look appeared on Jeremy's face. "Sorry, that's just…wow."

"That's Elena." He watched me for a moment as I shuffled through the goods. When I finally looked up from a journal in my lap, he was looking towards the door.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing," he said without any hint of denial. "I was just thinking about that vampire last night." I listened. "I'm wondering how he knew about you, why he attacked you, and who he's in contact with."

"I'd like to know why he thought I was a threat."

"He must have sensed your power," Jeremy told me. "He said _'history's come to repeat itself.'_ My guess is he thinks you're here to try and resurrect the originals."

"Original," I repeated. "As in…_the first vampires?"_

"The most powerful of which was a hybrid," he informed me. "And considering the take down of those originals is the _biggest_ hidden history of this town, I have no doubt that's what that vampire was talking about last night. He was probably afraid you showed up to try and resurrect an original."

I nearly choked. "You can resurrect the dead?"

Jeremy grinned. "I can't," he said in a smart-ass tone. "But an exceptionally powerful witch may be able. Bonnie resurrected me when I died."

The obvious popped into my head. "Why didn't anyone just try and bring back Damon?"

"We did," he spoke more darkly this time. "God, we tried so hard, _especially_ Stefan. It killed us all that there was nothing we could do about it, but eventually we had to let him go. I don't think Stefan ever really gave up though-you can just tell. When you mentioned Damon, Elena got defensive but Stefan became very alert, very quickly. He's still looking for a possibility."

"And you couldn't because Bonnie died."

Jeremy's eyes shot up at me with a sudden chill that made my skin tingle. "She died around the same time as Damon, but that's not the point. A witch—no matter how powerful, can't resurrect a vampire because they don't have a soul." Jeremy must have read my confusion because he clarified immediately. "The way a resurrection works is if the person just freshly died, a powerful witch can reattach the soul to the body-hence bringing the person back to life. A vampire doesn't have a soul though because the way a human becomes a vampire is when we die as a human, the vampire blood in our system transforms our bodies to remain living, but I souls disappear. You can't resurrect a dead vampire because the soul has long been gone and can no longer be reattached to the injured body."

It was a lot to all take in. For every rule about vampires, there was two more loopholes, and for every loophole, another set of rules and exceptions. And yet after learning all this information I felt like I was even more lost than before.

"So what do I do now?" I half only intended for myself and half to Jeremy.

"First, I think your best bet is to find out _why_ you were brought here."

"And how do you propose we start this mission?" I asked him.

"We find your connection. Have you ever tried to find out more about your birth parents?"


	9. Chapter 8: Attacks

**Chapter 8: ****Attacks**

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><p>Night was falling quickly and so far Jeremy and I had spent the last eleven hours sprawled through out his living room floor with the Gilbert Family journals, research and papers Jeremy and Elena had gathered over the years and Jeremy's laptop. And as I sat there with my eyes heavy and my muscles tired, I was finding it increasingly difficult to stay interested and awake.<p>

Jeremy was typing away on the floor, his back against the front of the couch. I was sprawled on the couch, my feet over one arm rest and my head on the other, but as I starred at the words of the pages in my hands, the clicking of the computer's keys turned into a lullaby. The letters in front of me blurred and faded away as I drifted into slumber…

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><p><strong>Something sweet blew softly at the hair around my face and I smiled in the darkness of my closed eyes. It was warm and quiet and when I opened my eyes, that familiar blue gaze was so close to mine I nearly jumped out of my own skin.<strong>

"**There we go," he said aloud. "Nice of you to finally get up."**

"**Are you always such an ass, or is this a recent post-death symptom?" I bit back bitterly but only partially serious as he smirked in my direction. Despite our banter, I was in a surprisingly good mood—and there was something different about Damon.**

"**You're early today," he commented as I just starred. There was definitely something different about Damon Salvatore. He was dressed in navy blue and black, acid-washed jeans, and that hole in his chest bore into my eyes when I starred. Damon was watching me with a peaceful look that took me by surprise.**

"**You're…in a good mood," I finally realized.**

"**I could say the same to you," he commented. I finally took a moment to look around and was surprised to see a very unusually friendly setting. Grass covered the floor we sat on, a blossom littering every few feet. And the big emptiness of the sky was almost the same color as Damon's icy gaze. There was a comfortable silence falling in the space, and as a strange breeze blew through the imagined world, I had the urge to lie down in the grass, so I did just that.**

**I starred into the light blue of the sky, hands locking on top of my stomach. There weren't any noises or any smells, and the space wasn't warm with sunlight, but it was calm and peaceful. As I lay and thought about everything that was happening in my life, Damon sat where he was, watching.**

"**Jeremy thinks I should find out if I'm from Salem."**

**Damon was quiet and when I glanced at him he had his eyes closed, his face pointed up as if feeling the sun that wasn't there.**

"**You don't realize how much you like the sunlight until it becomes your enemy and you can't feel it anymore."**

**I lied back down and starred back at the sky quietly. These unannounced shifts in conversation were becoming natural after the many nights spent in this limbo.**

"**That's life, Damon. You never notice something until it's gone."**

"**That's death too, when everything's gone." He replied swiftly. The tone of the conversation was darkening quickly with the greying sky.**

"**Except for you," he suddenly took me by surprise. **

"**Can't get rid of me, Salvatore," I replied back nonchalantly to hide my thoughts.**

"**You and I both know that's not what I meant, Elle." I sat up at the mention of my name and his accusation.**

"**Then what exactly, **_**do**_** you mean, Damon?"**

**His eyes bore into mine, sending my insides fluttering at all the intensity I never had seen there before. "You're everything I have now."**

**I froze and my eyes widened. I felt the air in my lungs get thick. **_**He wasn't saying this, right?**_

"**I like you,"**** he said softly coming closer. I watched nearly frozen until he was an inch away. I felt my heart beating loudly like a drum.**

"**Damon," I whispered closing my eyes. I smiled about to accept a kiss from the same vampire who'd given me nightmares for years, but instead I felt a soft peck on the side of my face, and when I opened my eyes he was backing up slowly a devilish smile on his handsome face.**

"**Expecting something?" He mocked at my open mouth and stunned expression.**

"**I-I..." but before I could say a whole word, Damon threw both of us backwards in a blur, me on my back on the grass and as he looked down at me his eyes glanced down at my lips before back at my eyes.**

"**Do I dare imagine Elle Stingles wants a kiss?" He teased. He didn't have a heartbeat, and he didn't radiate a warm off his skin like a living, breathing person. His lips were just grazing mine, a tantalizing torture on my hormones. "Do you Elle?" He whispered throatily. "Do you want me to kiss you?" **

"_**Elle…"**_

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><p>My eyes fluttered open and Jeremy's warm eyes were watching me intently. My heart was racing, my skin was hot, and I felt flushed with an unexplainable want.<p>

"D…I…Jeremy," I finally got out. I could feel my chest heavy in deep breathes, and Jeremy cocked an eyebrow.

"Dreaming again?"

_More like fantasizing. _"Yea." I swallowed hard, and Jeremy backed up standing as I swung my legs over the edge of the sofa and sat up. I could feel my heart slowing down and my skin cool in the breeze of an overhead fan, but that warmth in my veins teased my memories.

_Why the hell would I kiss dead Damon Salvatore?_

Should I bother even asking?" Jeremy questioned me as I sat with a hand over my heart trying to control my breathing better. I looked up at him that told him an obvious 'no,' and he just closed his mouth with a knowing expression and stepped away.

"Well, the social services office downtown closes at eleven and its just almost ten so I was thinking maybe you'd want to see if we can get some names or something."

"Yea," I said quickly standing. "Perfect. Right. Lets go," I spoke as I leaded myself out the front door.

"So what exactly were you dreaming of when you decided to snooze off back there?" Jeremy asked me in a car a few minutes later as we rounded a very dark and vacant corner.

"Trust me, you do not want to know."

Jeremy smiled but then dropped the subject.

"Where exactly is this office, anyways?" I asked him as I realized exactly how dark it was outside. The streetlights were slowly becoming farther and farther apart.

"I'm pretty sure it's just around the corner." Our eyes met and he smiled. "You're in a car with a vampire and you're afraid about what's outside in the dark?"

I rolled my eyes but the comment brought a smile to my face. "While you make an excellent point, Gilbert," we finally rounded into a lit parking lot and Jeremy pulled into a space a few feet from an office entrance. "We both know it wouldn't be the first time something older than you attacks us. Plus I trust you, Jere." Jeremy put the car in park and killed the entrance. As he opened his door however, he paused to look at me.

"I'm glad, I like you."

I felt a chill run through my body when those three words were suddenly much too familiar. Obliviously to my now growing inner turmoil though, Jeremy made his way to the door of the office as I stepped out of the car too and followed close behind him. A bell rang as Jeremy opened the door and allowed me to step through first into an eerily lit fluorescent room. Desks and waiting chairs littered the room and from our position, uniform doors of offices seemed to line the back wall.

"I'm sorry, we're about to close. May I help you?" A secretary a few feet away voiced upon noticing our appearance.

I approached her first. "I was hoping I could get a background family ancestry search?"

"We would be more than happy to look that up for you, but we're closing very shortly so it would be best if you could return tomorrow." I frowned, but before I could even turn to leave, Jeremy came up right next to me with a charming smile.

"Please, we would _really_ appreciate it if you could help us out tonight." The secretary looked up to argue but suddenly her eyes met Jeremy and she froze. "_You could help us real quick, right?"_

Her stare was transfixed for a moment with Jeremy's gaze, and then she suddenly blinked and smiled.

"Of course Miss, let me go speak with a social worker and see if they can try and pull up your name. Can I have a name and ID please?"

I handed over my ID, made a quick note of my being adopted and she stepped away. As soon as her head disappeared behind a door and I spun around.

"What the hell was that, Jere?" I whispered, annoyed. His reply was an almost sheepish smile. "You _compelled_ her, didn't you?"

"You needed a little help. Its harmless."

"Its _wrong,_ Jer. You can't just take away her free will like that."

"Who, who, who," he suddenly backed up defensively. "All I did was gently _convince her_ to try and help us. I didn't tell her to go change professions or jump off a cliff, Elle."

"It doesn't matter," I looked sternly. "Its not right. I felt what its like to be compelled-you feel manipulated and controlled like a puppet on strings. It sucks."

Jeremy rolled his eyes with a smirk to fit a rebellious teenager. "You know, its funny that you're mad at me when you…" The lights suddenly went out and Jeremy froze still.

There was dead silence in the room all of a sudden. I watched Jeremy as he stood transfixed in his spot, still like a statue. His smirk began to fade though and I felt a chill begin to creep up my spine when he took a step closer to me.

"Where did that secretary go?" He asked me darkly. Not a single sound could be heard. The secretary had disappeared into a room where there was supposed to be a social worker working, but now not even a footstep could be heard.

"Jeremy?" I felt my voice shiver. He put his arm on my shoulder and began steering me towards the door.

"We gotta go. Something's not right here." We quickly rushed through the front door. By the time the bell rang the door was already closing behind us. We were half way to the car, Jeremy still protectively close with one arm around me quickly guiding me to his vehicle when everything suddenly happened.

I didn't even have time to see it. Jeremy spun around so fast with a shove in my chest, all the air flew right out of me in a white light of pain. A small burst of ear-blowing noise exploded and before my eyes rolled back I watched pop of red blood burst from the center of Jeremy's chest. He began to fall, and it was all in slow motion. Everything blurred.

Jeremy disappeared before his hit the floor, another shot exploded into the air. Something snapped. A blur flew past me and my arm exploded in pain as I screamed intensely into the air. There was a blur and a snap and a body thudded heavily a few feet away. I caught Jeremy's gaze for a fraction of a second. His eyes glowed bright, blood red. Black veins surrounded his usually peaceful face, his teeth were tightly barred, and yet his face had every emotion at once: pain, dread, fear, excitement and panic. He disappeared in a blur, a snap sounded out, a thud followed behind but then a familiar blood curdling half-swallowed scream sounded in the air. Everything was dead silent in an instant.

And then there was a blur, an explosion sounded inches from my ears and everything went white.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

Hey guys! Sooooo, whatcha think? =D In all hoensty, I don't think I've successful at action scenes, but I imagined that from a human's (well, witch really) point of view, suddenly being attacked by some vampires would be little more than many blurs, sounds, smells, and very little sights. Speaking of which, don't take anything that just happened lightly. Jeremy and Elle are is _serious_ danger. But who in the world attacked them? _Why_ did they attack them? Are we going to have a death in the story?

And the romance! Things are heating up. Pardon the posible innuendo here, but Damon just jumped right in, didn't he? It was probably a little rushed on my part, especially since they just went from getting at each other's throats to causing some serious sexual frustration (and they haven't even so much as really _kissed_ yet.) but I figured Damon's not really a patient man to begin with and he'd probably just jump right in once he felt comfortable enough anyways.


	10. Chapter 9: Till Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

Alright guys, prepare yourself. The title of this chapter is just a _glimpse_ of the insanity you're about to read.  
>This is also one of the technically most difficult chapters to read, but its my favorite!<br>So please, read, review, and watch out for clues as to what is yet to come. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Chapter <strong>**9: Till Death Do Us Part**

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><p><em>Another shot exploded into the air. Something snapped. There was a blur, an explosion sounded inches from my ears and everything went white.<em>

Death is such a strange idea. It is both something so permanent and something so transitional. It is both something concrete and ambiguous. Everyone knows you die but no one knows how. It is random and it is predictable. It can be avoided and it can't. You can be certain of the after, and no one else may believe the same. It is a mind flux. It is invisible, inevitable, unavoidable, permanent, unbreakable, death.

It was all such a blur. There was a steady rhythm, a weak beat, a thump in the ears. _Thump…thump…thump…_

_Was it my heart?_ Someone shouted, a tearful scream. _Who was it?_

Colors faded by, _dark, _**light,** _black,_ **white**_…so many blurs._

The rhythm was slowing. Someone…something tugged powerfully on my body, but it was all so faint. Voices…_**voices so soft**_…_voices so frantic_…

Something pounded roughly on my chest, but the rhythm was dying. Everything fading…_**everything blurred white.**_

**Another voice. **_**Someone frantic.**_

"**Elle…"**

_The rhythm…the rhythm was so small…_

**There was a taste in my mouth, something salty, thick…metallic.**

"**Please Elle, please…"**

**Who was crying? Someone so frantic in blurry white haze…**

But back to black.

"Come on Elle, drink. Drink…"

Jeremy?

**It blurred back to white. **

"**No Elle, don't do this now."**

_**Damon…**_

Thump. My eyes blurred back to dark.

"Jeremy…" I whispered back into white.

"Elle, NO! Come on, you're dying!"

_**He was shouting…his eyes…he was so beautiful…**_

**Thump.**

Back to dark, someone was pushing roughly on my chest.

His soft brown eyes glowed red.

He smells like cinnamon.

"_**Elle…"**_

_**Damon?**_

Thump.

**Everything went white and in focus. Damon's bright baby blue eyes starred back at mine with a whole new intensity never seen before: fear.**

"**No, no, no, no, no…go back Elle. You need to go back, you're dying…you're dying…"**

**It smelled salty, copper. His hands were so bloodied, pumping against my chest so intensely, my limbs all jumped at each compression.**

_**I couldn't see the darkness anymore. I couldn't feel Jeremy anymore.**_

"_**Damon…" I whispered.**_

**He was coming into focus.**

"_**Don't," he pleaded, his compressions were getting weak. "Just go back."**_

_**Was he crying for me?**_

"_**Please Elle," he wasn't compressing anymore. His hands glistened deep red. My eyes were growing tired as he starred into me, his bright blue eyes so torn. They looked destroyed. My eyes started heavily falling and he leaned forward, hands at either side of my head, fingers through my hair, he lifted my head so softly to his.**_

_**And I felt his sweet soft lips so urgent on mine as he faded away to nothingness. As my eyes closed, I felt a last goodbye.**_

* * *

><p><strong>I opened my eyes into emptiness.<strong>

**I bolted up right at an inhumane speed, about to gasp deeply for breath before realizing…**

"**I can't breathe," I half gasped. **

"**I know," he spoke softly. I grasped strongly at my chest, starring up at Damon, now clean, and his very sad, very empty light, blue, eyes. "You don't have a heart beat either."**

**I was silent for a second, and I tried to listen, tried to feel for that familiar beat, that familiar thump…but there was nothing.**

"**Damon," I felt a sudden fear course through me at a realization. "I…I"**

**Damon didn't need me to finish the word as he pulled me into his arms and tightly against his chest, and as I felt a violent, dry sob erupt from my body, his fingers interlaced in my hair, and just held me. He held me like we were something more than dream enemies. He held me like I was something special in his life saying a last goodbye. He held me like a loving welcome from death.**

**And I cried. I'd spent days and weeks pitying Damon dead for eternity in the emptiness of forever, and now he wasn't alone. **

**I was dead.**

* * *

><p>"<strong>Are you ok?" Damon's blue eyes were watching me, watching for any signs of a break down.<strong>

**It was a strange sensation, this death. I cried for what seemed like forever, yet they were dry tears. You didn't breath, you didn't need to blink, you didn't have a heart beat. You were an empty body. I smiled meekly at Damon's question.**

**Though Damon and I were yet to discuss any boundaries or definitions of the strange and convoluted relationship between us, as I leaned against him with his arms around me and his body tightly pressed against mine, it was obvious we'd surpassed the "mutual acquaintances" classification.**

"**Is this what you went through when you died?" My voice was rough, somewhere between a whisper and a tearful voice.**

"**Yes and no," he was stroking my arms, his hands running softly up my skin and then back down again. "When I died before the transition, I was shot, but those weapons weren't the same back then. It was like an explosion inside your body, and it was so quick I didn't really feel anything. I just remember that shocking pain and then I woke up as a vampire."**

"**What about when you died as a vampire?"**

**He was quiet for a moment. "That was my own choice, so I knew it was coming."**

**I looked up at him and he was starring off into an invisible distance. It was so strange everything that was going on, but I didn't think about what I was doing anymore. As Damon starred off blindly, I was struck for a moment in a slight awe at his whole different character that he'd transformed into since the terrifying, dark figure I had spent so many years dreaming of. He finally caught my eyes and smirked.**

"**Admiring your view?"**

**I smiled, and I knew normally I would play along with his tease and attempt to reply with something witty, but This was the time, nor place, nor state for my doing so. Instead I just embraced his side and imagined his scent filling my nostrils as I held onto his body like a support system.**

"**I tried to save you," he whispered in his usual empty tone of deep pensiveness. "I didn't even see the blood or smell it. I just saw you appear and you were bleeding so much…"**

"**I know," I whispered back scooting even closer to his side as he moved his arm for me to lean against him and then brought it back down around my back. "I remember. I think Jeremy was too."**

"**Did Jeremy die?"**

"**I don't think so," I answered honestly. "The first shot was fired towards me but he threw me out of the way and got shot instead. But in my fall I hit my head and then it was just blurs and gunshots and then someone blurred right in front of me, pointed, and shot. I didn't even have time to protect myself."**

"**They knew you were a witch."**

**I looked up at him at this. "You think it was set up?"**

**He made a face as if to say 'probably'. "If they attacked so quickly without even time to check if you were the correct target then its because they knew what you were capable of." It was as if suddenly my death seemed a whole lot worse.**

"**Oh boy," I muttered as I felt on the weight of this revelation weigh down on me.**

"**It could be worse," he told me surprisingly. "My own father killed me because I was naïve enough to be seduced by an evil slut."**

"**At least if I'm dead, I'm dead here with you." The words slipped off my tongue before I could even filter them, and Damon's head snapped so quickly towards mine it was instantaneous.**

**I was very aware of our closeness in that moment. Damon began slowly moving his arm away from my body as he turned towards me. This overwhelming sense of what would normal cause goosebumps washed over my skin. His eyes were inches from mine, a deep, beautiful, crystal blue. And I had the urge to swallow like I was suddenly some love-sick sixteen year old.**

**I felt his smile as my eyes fell closed, but I didn't think about it as my whole body was absorbed into Damon's cool, comforting lips against mine. I melted.**

**But just as quickly as I tasted his lips, he retracted, and when I opened my eyes he was smirking cockily at me. "Good?"**

"**Better if you don't stop," I said briskly moving forward without warning and crashing my mouth against his. My arms didn't ask for permission as they wrapped themselves around his neck, soft half-curls of thick black hair soft against my skin, his hands were strong and powerful as they took anchor on my waist. And I was intoxicated with his taste and touch.**

**I couldn't get close enough. My fingers dug into his hair, my chest was smashed against his, his hands were almost bruising at my waist. I wanted to get closer, I wanted to breathe him in. **

**I felt like I would be out of breath if I had working lungs, and I wanted to shift position, but before I could even move, we were both suddenly thrown a foot away so I landed flat on my back, Damon with one arm to my right, the other under my back below the hem of my shirt, his knee between mine. Damon raised his head for a moment, eyes glowing in lust, and he smirked before finding his lips against my neck and below my ear. I giggled at his abruptness but the giggle turned into a small moan.**

**He was intoxicating.**

"**Oh…**_**Damon**_**…" I half whispered and half moaned so softly it was barely audible. "Damon…" I repeated, He nibbling at my ear lobe, soft bites with his blunt teeth. He was sending me skyrocketing, his hand was rising up my back, melting into my skin.**

**A strange sensation was building though—not the normal foreplay feeling, a strange expanding in my chest.**

"**Damon, Damon—wait," I spoke suddenly. The pressure was expanding, expanding, expanding.**

**His eye were lustful, but as soon as they fell on mine his eyes changed immediately. "What's wrong? What's happening."**

**My back was pulling, my ribs were stretching. I opened my mouth to scream but the expansion blocked it.**

"**Elle!" Damon grabbed me at both sides of back, pulling me into his lap. My eyes rolled in the back of my head, everything was blurring, everything was about to explode.**

"**Elle-ELLE!"**

**Everything exploded at once. My skin blazed in scorching flames, my eyes popped like bags, my chest exploded in dynamite, my bones all shattered.**

I suddenly opened my eyes and gasped uncontrollably.

"Elle!" Brown eyes were looking into mine with an intensity immeasurable.

I was convulsing. My body was on fire and on ice all at once. I was gasping wildly, and intense pressure in my chest like a weight.

"Oh my God, Elle…" Without a warning and still gasping wildly out of breath, Jeremy Gilbert pulled me up into his chest holding me tightly against his body with one hand supporting the back of my neck against his chest.

"J..J-Jeremy," I was stuttering. I was trying to breathe but my breaths were coming out in deep heaves.

"God I thought you died…you were so still…"

"I-I…" I felt myself begin to regain my breath. "I did," I gasped. I grasped my chest to try and help the heaving, but as soon as I touched the fabric of my shirt, I felt warm, wet, stickiness on it. Jeremy released me slightly and I shakily looked down at me and felt my head suddenly swirl with lightheaded ness: my hands, my clothes, and Jeremy's hands and clothes were soaked in my blood.

"Oh my God, oh my God…" I started crying, and Jeremy quickly removed his jacket and covered up my bloodied hands in the black fabric to hide the evidence. "Jeremy, I died…I died, oh my God."

"Shhh, shhh….It's ok," he hushed me softly but I was shaking at the feel of my own blood all around me. He stood up quickly, and without losing a beat, pulled one arm up under my knees and the other behind my back and lifted me into his arms bridal style.

_I had died._


	11. Chapter 10: In Loving Memory

**Chapter 10: In Loving Memory**

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><p>I had died.<p>

Jeremy kicked open the door as he hoisted me over the threshold and into the large home. Normally I would be worried right now, headed back to the Salvatore house after the last encounter with Jeremy's sister, but now I didn't feel anything. I was numb inside, my eyes were glazed and my ears were fuzzy.

"Stefan!" Jeremy yelled into the empty walls of the massive structure as he carried me around a corner and into the library we had been before. I didn't hear there footsteps, it just blended in with everything else, but both Stefan and Elena appeared just as Jeremy made it in the couch in front of the fireplace.

"Come on, come on, its ok Elle," Jeremy whispered as he lowered me into the antique cushions.

"What happened?" Stefan spoke alarmed, in sync with a gasp from Elena. Jeremy remained hunched over the sofa protectively hovering over me as I realized I was shivering.

"I don't know, they just came out of no where," Jeremy's voice was cracking and Stefan beckoned for him to move as they switched places. "We were attacked-they shot at us, and I got her out of the way but then another one just…"

"Elle, look at me, right here," Stefan was motioning with his hands for my attention to follow his eyes, but I was having a difficulty to get my eyes to focus on the pale hazel irises. He lifted my brows so my eyes were more opened and watched as my gaze moved around the room. "And you fed her blood?" Stefan asked Jeremy without breaking my eye contact.

At that moment one could hear a pin drop, it was so silent.

Stefan turned to Jeremy with one hand still on my shoulder. "Did you feed her your blood?" He repeated.

Jeremy swallowed and it was answer enough. Stefan turned back to me with a more intensified expression.

"How are you feeling Elle? Hungry? Thirsty? Are you having a sensitivity to light?" I just starred at him for a moment. The numbness was muddling me together. It was difficult to pay attention, but finally I just shook my head bleakly. Stefan ran his fingers under my eyes and looked at them once more before his face relaxed.

"She must not have drunk it, because she's not in transition." The moment those words escaped his lips Jeremy released the most tense sigh of relief. "I don't know how she's alive, but it must have been magic or something."

"Can witches even be turned into vampires?" Elena suddenly broke her silence. She was watching me and it should have made me cold, but I was just numb.

"I don't know," Stefan answered honestly. Finally noticing my shivering, he grabbed a blanket from off a chair and wrapped it around my bloody clothing. "What I do know is you're probably in shock Elle."

I looked up at his eyes finally at the first direct mention of my name. The pale green hazel was swirling with unreadable thoughts. _He was nothing like his brother whose eyes poured out his soul._

"Are you ok?" He finally asked me more tenderly. I was frozen, trying to read something in his eyes to dispel the dark emptiness, numbness and fear deep within my bones, but there's wasn't much to find; we were all uncertain.

* * *

><p>It was so early in the morning that even the birds were still sleeping. Jeremy had carried me home after miraculously reviving me by some still unexplained miracle. He'd managed to get me to clean up, and I'd changed out of my blood soaked clothes, crawled into bed and tried to sleep tightly wound into a ball of limbs and body.<p>

But I couldn't. As I spent hour after hour willing sleep to take hold of so I could return to Damon, I couldn't let my mind rest enough from the unexplained truth: I had died.

The first rays of light were beginning to rise from the window blinds and I pulled my knees up to my chest, holding myself tightly while I felt like I was falling apart.

I shouldn't be alive. I shouldn't be here now, lying in bed in the real world. I should be dead, stuck in limbo with Damon.

_Damon._ Why was I alive, out of that _in between_ and Damon damned to spend eternity alone?

Someone knocked lightly in my door, but I didn't make any noise or movement. I wanted to put up a fake charade that I was ok, I was sleeping, and I was happy to be alive. But after a few seconds, the door lightly opened anyway. My back was facing the door, and I didn't have the strength to move. _I never felt so empty._

His footsteps were light, so soft I could barely hear anything. The bed shifted as he sat at the edge opposite of me. And surprisingly, we just sat there. Me half curled into a ball, a cold emptiness filling me up with a numbing feeling, Jeremy quiet, pensive, and protective. He was trying to protect me.

"Do you want to eat something, Elle?"

I didn't say anything. _Was I hungry? Was I thirsty?_

Another cold, dead silence settled between us for some time, and Jeremy didn't move, he just sat there, silently watching me, wondering if I was going to fall apart.

_It just didn't make sense._

"You _did_ drink, didn't you?" The break in silence was almost deafening. I looked up into his eyes, and his dark stare was torn. I just barely nodded.

"So you had vampire blood in you, you died, but you came back _human._"

"Please," I pleaded. It was all too much. The death, the revival, _my_ death and revival, Damon…it was too much. I couldn't process it all and it all overpowered me like a flood. A very, very cold flood, and this feeling—this suffocation that felt like it was draining my bones, my muscles, and my entire being as a whole just made me think of one other person who wasn't here now and could never be here for anyone else any other time. Someone who didn't come back with me.

"Can you take me somewhere?" I whispered still looking out the cold, grey window.

I could almost feel Jeremy's sad smile. "Of course. Where do you want to go?"

I let out of deep breath like a weight thrown out of my lungs and looked at him. "I'd like to see where Damon's buried."

It was strange what I was feeling. I had been so dead, so empty and so numb back at the Gilbert house and in Jeremy's bullet-hole car. But then when he finally cut the engine and I looked at where we'd stopped, I felt better just at first glance. A moment later as Jeremy and I walked through the weeded little stone archway of the Mystic Falls cemetery, I couldn't help but feel fresher.

"This is really pretty," I mumbled almost inaudibly.

"Our town's been around so long, a majority of the founding families have family plots here. My parents, my uncle and my aunt are all buried down there to the right." We paused for a moment at a higher point of the cemetery. Down the curve below, old stone tombstones marked the resting places of dearly departed. Before I could think more about it though, Jeremy was walking again.

He led me between rows and rows of ornately carved stones and crosses. The farther back we went, the more impressive the stones. Patches of multiple markers were beginning to be closed off by shallow stone fencing. Finally, Jeremy rounded a corner and was staring at four tombs, two ornate, and two tiny unmarked graves.

"Because Damon and Stefan were considered betraying the city, their father shunned them with unnamed graves. Even after they became a vampire, I think the intention of Stefan at least was to end up back here."

The stone the farthest back was the smallest. Without so much as a letter on it to mark the beloved man it signified, I knew immediately it was Damon's, and I felt my throat constrict immediately and the tears begin to swell.

"He didn't get a marker…"

Jeremy smiled to my astonishment, and before I could question him, he turned and headed down a hill behind the Salvatore plot.

"Jeremy?" I questioned taking one last look at Damon's meager grave before following behind him.

"When Damon died, Stefan knew he'd never want to share a plot with their father, and the man who killed them in 1864. We were also afraid that witches," he smirked at me when he spoke the word and my eyes widened a bit as we continued the very strange path behind the most elaborate plots and mausoleum of the cemetery. "Or even other vampires would try and dig up his body to try and damage it for revenge."

As the path grew farther and farther from the main plots, tombs became more and more sparse. "Why would they want to dig him up?" I questioned. Finally we made it to the very far edge of the cemetery. We were at the end, against a rot-iron fence that encircled the entire field of memories. Jeremy put a hand on the gate but turned to me first.

"When Damon died, he took down the last original with him. His death was the only option he knew of to kill Klaus. Unfortunately, there were many, many people angry about Klaus's death, and as revenge want to pray on Damon's remains." He lifted the latch and swung the iron gate open. I moved to step in, and when my eyes saw it, it was like the moment where everything froze.

"So we moved him here to keep him safe."

A willow tree sat in the distance. Its long tendrils and leaves were still, but as a breeze blew through they danced in the force, and now with the middle of autumn, its leaves were falling off, blanketing the floor around them. And about two feet away, so hidden you'd have to know it was there to see it, was the smallest flat slab of stone on the floor.

This was a moment in which my _feeling_ kicked in and the world around me disappeared. The world was silent as I stepped forward, and blurred in my peripherals. The leaves crunching beneath my steps were invisible, and as I finally stopped and kneeled down in front of that small stone slab, I felt my throat start to constrict, my eyes start to sting like acid, and the leaves being brushed away by my finger tips felt like knives until the small inscription shined through the cool gray memorial marker.

"Brother and Hero."

The first little drop felt hot against my skin as it slid its way down the curve of my cheek. I suddenly felt the full force of a hundred pounds hit against my chest and as I gasped out loud as in a sob, my knees gave out beneath me, and I slid to the leaf-covered flooring over the remains of someone so alive in one world and so dead in the other.

"It doesn't even have his name," I sobbed as I traced the letters with my fingers. The stone was rough but smooth beneath my fingertips. The weight of a hundred tears felt heavy in my chest. It was surreal.

"Stefan didn't want it to be obvious who was here," Jeremy spoke softly. I didn't turn to him, my eyes were mesmerized on the three words on the stone, but as I starred and realized everything that was flooding in my head, I could almost feel Jeremy's thoughts as he noticed my inner turmoil and made his own decision to back up and disappear back into the enclosed graveyard.

This was a memorial. This was the place made in loving memory of Damon…Damon who was _so alive_ in my dreams.

But he wasn't alive. He was dead.

"_He's dead,"_ it wasn't a realization, but a feeling of suddenly coming to terms with a tragedy. I pulled my legs in front of me and wrapped my arms around my knees, and as the sobs emerged from my mouth, I'd never felt so torn and broken all at once.

_I had died, _but I'm here now, alive, breathing, seeing, feeling.

_Damon died,_ but he was here now, shriveled and decaying, closed in a grave beneath a willow tree, beneath a body that wanted him here more than ever.

"I wish I could bring you back with me," I cried into my knees as my eyes lay on the three stone words. As the tears ran on, and the time passed by, the sun climbed into the sky, and my eyes grew heavy. I let myself rest my head against my knees, never feeling so close and so far from someone at once.

My eyes grew heavy and I felt my body drift away as his name played on my lips.

* * *

><p><strong>A sniffled escaped my lips, and I kept my eyes firmly closed. <strong>

**Pain. I was in **_**so much pain.**_** Physical, mental, emotional pain like a festering wound deep in my soul that washed away all my will to even want to be alive. I didn't want to be alive. I wanted this to be fair. I wanted to be with…**

**A sob escaped my mouth and something softly stroked my face as a soft touch brushed away the messy strand of hair away from my face and I realized I wasn't on grass anymore, I was being surrounded…held.**

"**You should be there with me. You should have lived too," I cried as I released my knees and grasped the soft cotton around his strong chest in exchange. I didn't need him to speak or me to open my eyes to know whom it was. It was always going to be **_**him.**_

"**I lived long enough for multiple generations. Your life is barely at its highest point, Elle." He pulled me tighter, and I lifted my head a little so it fit right into the crook of his neck. And I breathed in deeply, the cold wet of my tears seeping off my skin and trying desperate to smell him, breathe him in—but he didn't have a smell. He didn't have a warmth; he was dead, and I was not.**

"**Elle, why are you so upset that you're alive?" I finally opened my eyes. The cold empty whiteness of this limbo world was almost blinding, but as my eyes focused I saw the wet bathes of cotton my tears had left and looked up into Damon's torn, grey eyes. **_**You could see right into his soul with those eyes.**_

"**I shouldn't be alive," I finally fessed, and the moment the words fell off my lips out loud, everything came flooding out my body. "I shouldn't be alive, Damon. I should have stayed dead. I died-you died, but I came back and I'm alive again and a human witch again and you're still here and you're dead and I wish it wasn't, because I don't deserve it, I should still be dead. I should be here with you, but now I'm alive and your stuck here and I can't do anything and you should be alive with me because I…" I finally stopped myself before the deepest confession could make an escape and my eyes widened as I realized the missing sentence that had almost spilled out my lips.**

**Damon's arms rubbed up and down my arms, his head resting on top of mine and I realized that giant emptiness and dead weight pressing on my soul was suddenly gone. The metaphorical weight had been dispelled with the vocal confession. I sniffed through my nose and the tears died down, but I kept my arms around Damon's strong body. I liked this, and I never wanted to let him go. **

**Damon was silent. We sat there, wrapped around each other in complete silence, Damon holding me like I was a broken doll, and me clinging to him like he was my last shred of life. But even as Damon kept silent, he said everything I needed to here: he was saying that it wasn't fair and it wasn't ok, but I had a life in front of me and he had many lives behind him. There was a reason I was alive now and he was not, and even though neither of us knew what that reason was, we did know we were both here together now and we mine as well embrace it.**

"**I went to your grave today," I finally changed the subject in a whisper. My grip on him faded from a death grip into a comfortable hold finally, but Damon's embrace didn't change. There was a moment where I question who was holding who anymore. "Its so beautiful Damon. So protected."**

"**But unlabeled," he cut me off.**

**I finally moved a way a bit from him to look up at his eyes: they were a cold grey and starring off straight ahead unflinching.**

"**Anyone important enough knows its you, Damon," I replied, completely ignoring the mental question of how he knew the unnamed state of his burial marker. "Your brother, Elena, everyone was so careful to keep your body safe. They loved you."**

"**Do you?" He unexpectedly asked. Everything literally came to a halt. I froze in my spot and in my graze. I began hyper aware of my heartbeat and the closeness of our bodies. **_**Did I?**_

"…" **I opened my mouth but nothing came out.**

"**They say they loved me now because I'm gone and I died for them. But no one would dare to confess it while I was around. Its remorse, its not love." His confession was cold and I came to realization that he wasn't holding me anymore. His body had gone rigid; he had become detached.**

"**What?" I finally release his body so I could sit in front of him, eye to eye. His cold, light grey gaze was empty.**

"**Damon, how could you say that?"**

"**Because its true," he spoke more angrily than before. "Everyone treats you like shit until your dead and suddenly you're the best God-damn thing on earth. Alive, they wish you died. Dead they want you back-it's the human nature of the world."**

**I couldn't believe my ears. Damon wasn't bitter, and he was sad or remorseful-he was completely **_**destroyed.**_

"**You're full of it," I spat out. I could feel my emotions heat. He was actually pissing me off. "Who are you trying to convince of this Damon?" But before I finished the sentence he was three feet away, standing and starring down at me with deep, dark, angry eyes.**

"**You think no one **_**cares**_** about you?" I stood up, eye-to-eye now, angry as the stubborn ass standing in front of me. "Let me spell it out for you **_**Salvatore:**_** your brother, sacrificed **_**everything**_** for you when you were **_**alive," **_**I was spitting in anger, taking a step forward. "And when you died, you have no **_**idea**_** what he went through. He gave **_**everything**_** to keep your body and your name, and your history safe, sacred, and protected after you died. The amount of love and respect he had for you is more than anything you could begin to even imagine, and your just standing here trying to play a pity party telling me no one cared?" I was raging in furry. Damon was about to speak but I cut him off. **

"**And Elena, you're really screwed in the head if you think she **_**ever**_** stopped thinking about you. She almost KILLED me just mentioning your name. Your name brings up so much pain, so much anguish in her, that she goes insane just at the mention of you. She physically can not stand to hear your name because it destroys her like something you can't even imagine, and your fucking standing here now telling me **_**no one cares?**_**" We were an inch apart now squared eye-to-eye, two furious gazes.**

"**But I'll always be second."**

"**Except for me," I spit and without any warning his mouth came crashing down on mine. I gasped out loud into his mouth at the surprise and Damon threw me into a bruising kiss. He was everywhere all at once. Our tongues found each, battling in a kiss of lust, anger and passion strange and foreign yet familiar and comforting all at once. His fingers dug deep into my skin of my hips and the back of my head. Whether it was a lack of oxygen or the sudden intoxication I was drowning in with Damon, I was losing all control of my body and my senses.**

**In a blur we were flat against the ground, now soft and cushioned, one arm to my side, the other inching under my shirt, one knee between my legs, Damon's body hovered over mine and he found the sound of my neck and his voice grew heavy and lustful.**

"**You drive me **_**insane," **_**he spoke so huskily in my ear.**

"**Damon," I moaned out loud. His blunt teeth moved from imprinting my neck to pulling my ear lobe into his mouth. I was drowning, intoxicated in his taste and body. His hand was now almost at the top of my back, the hem of my shirt in his grip, and he separated from me and pulled the cotton over my head and his own shirt over his so quickly I almost missed it. His tongue was along the outside of my ear, and his fingers barely grazed the clasp of my bra as it snapped open, and his hand found my soft flesh and I arched in a deep moan, begging for friction as my body came into contact with that leg between mine.**

"**Oh God," I moaned. It could have been that I was hyper aware after being so angry, or it could have been that it had been many, **_**many**_** months since I'd even so much as made out with a man, but I was a puddle of sexual hormones in Damon's hands and my fingers fumbled with his belt and button, but the second his jeans opened, his hands stopped mine immediately.**

"**Wait," he rasped out. He looked up at me and his eyes were dark in lust. "We go on now, and I won't stop. I can lose control, and you have to be ready for that. I don't want to hurt you Elle." His eyes searched my for an answer, but instead of speaking, my hands found his neck and I pulled him down into a surprisingly soft kiss.**

"_**I trust you."**_


	12. Chapter 11: Love With a Salvatore

**Chapter 11: Love with a Salvatore**

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>Damon…"<strong>_** My body found itself in sheer bliss. My chest was pounding uncontrollably, my skin was glittering in sweat, and my body was positively vibrating in those post-orgasm ripples. **

"**Damon?" I whispered. I could feel my heartbeat finally start to calm, and the aftereffects of our tango start to settle over me like a blanket of calmness. He made the softest noise as an answer.**

"**Are you suffering here?" He didn't answer for a moment. I had a strange comfort in my warm, sweaty skin against his cool, sculpted chest, my fingers reveling in the soft, dark half-curls framing his face. This was **_**peaceful.**_

"**If I ever thought I'd end up anywhere after death, this isn't what I had expected." He raised his head a moment to glance at me and smiled. "But it was definitely worse before you started appearing." His sentence didn't answer the question, but it did make one thing apparent.**

"**You're lonely," I spoke more as a statement than a question.**

"**That much hasn't changed since **_**any**_** death," he answered honestly. "But this place…its like part of your mind; it works **_**like a dream. **_**Whatever I think of can happen, whatever I want can appear, whatever I wish to avoid disappears."**

"**Why didn't you think of Elena?"**

**He was still for a moment. "I did," he answered finally. "At the beginning. I thought of an Elena who loved me back as much as I loved her. I thought of a Stefan who had never met Elena. It wasn't natural though. I could make an Elena that never knew Stefan ever even existed, but she wasn't real. She could think, act, talk, touch without my telling her to. It wasn't natural, and I've done it enough times to know I'd rather be alone then have to compel someone else to love me-because then its not a dream anymore, it's a nightmare."**

"**She loved you, you know," I spoke honestly. "You're brother too. They all loved you, and they've tried so hard to keep your name heroic. And Damon, you should see where they buried you. Its beautiful there; so cared for."**

"**In a couple of decades though, no one will remember my name."**

"**I will," I answered immediately. He pulled me closer to his cool body. "And your brother will, and Elena will. I could never forget you Damon."**

**Though I didn't see it, I knew he smiled at that. **

"**If you had met me when I was human, I would of loved you."**

**The sudden fear of rejection washed over me as I heard the sentence **_**I don't love you**_** amidst his statement.**

"…**What's stopping you now?"**

**He was silent for a moment. "Death."**

**I was become hyper aware of my heartbeat, my pulse rising, my heart beat getting stronger and my skin flush. "What about me?"**

"**What about you?" Damon asked confused as he starred up into the imagined sky.**

"**What about if I love you?"**

**I could almost hear him think. He was searching for words, searching for something to reply to the unplanned question, but when he opened and closed his mouth, there was only silence.**

**Finally, he spoke just two words:**

"**You shouldn't," and with those two words I felt it al start to hurt again. This big metaphorical whole that had seemed to be aching in my chest since the physical whole that killed me had appeared and then redisapeared.**

"**But I do," I felt my eyes watering, stinging in the heat of emotions. "I think I started falling in love with you the first day that stupid spell nearly burst you into flames in my dream."**

**Damon finally shifted in almost a blur we were flipped over so his strong, silent body hovered over mine. He kissed my collarbone and I smiled, eyes closed, reveling in the sensual but peaceful moment, enjoying this strange affection.**

"**I can't," he started kissing up, his lips at the crook of my neck where it met my should. "Begin," his lips moved up the side of my neck. "To explain," his cool mouth washed the base of my ear in kissed. "How much," he found the corner of my jaw and I felt that stir rise in my bones, my back ached, arching slightly into his body. "I've fallen in love with you," He finally reached my eye level, searching my eyes for a response, and when my eyes deceived my emotions, he met my lips with his.**

* * *

><p>I woke up almost twelve hours later with a smile on my lips.<p>

_I'm in love with Damon Salvatore. I _made_ love with Damon Salvatore._ I was in love with a man who died fourteen years ago, and yet, as I sat up in the guest bedroom of the gilbert house, stretched in the darkness of rising dawn, I smiled.

Because I was in love.

"Good morning," a voice sounded out my open door so suddenly I jumped, but kept my smile as I saw Jeremy, in pajamas and looking particularly haggard leaning against the open doorframe of the room.

"Good Morning," I replied in an almost sing-song voice as I finally stood out of bed to go look for some shoes.

"You fell asleep at the graveyard you know," Jeremy spoke to my back as I dug through a bag for a pair.

"I know," I sang again happily. Sunshine. I felt like sunshine today.

"And you slept for fourteen hours," he spoke again, trying to elicit a reaction—any reaction from me.

I spun around to him, a smile on my lips and practically skipped my way through the door.

"Did I now?" I playfully batted my eyes as I passed him towards the bathroom as he watched me with a strange expression.

"Ok, yesterday you couldn't sleep you were so destroyed, but today you're walking on sunshine?"

"It's a _beautiful_ day!" I sang through the door of the bathroom as I changed into jeans.

"Either you had an epiphany," Jeremy started just as I reopened the door, now dressed in a messy tank and jeans. "Or you got laid."

My mouth dropped open, and Jeremy finally cracked a smile.

"Can't a girl just be happy?" I teased him now back to the regular Elle morning.

"Not when she spends fourteen hours _moaning_ 'Damon, oh Damon!'"

I felt my face start to burn red as I headed down the stairs with Jeremy at my heels.

"You're lying, Gilbert."

"I'm sorry, would you like me to record it next time?"

"Whatever, Jeremy," I sang making my way into the kitchen and through a cupboard.

"I don't know, I didn't know how _enthusiastic_ you could be after spending a day so gloomy. Must have been really good."

I spun around so fast he almost didn't see it coming. "That is _none_ of your business," I finally bit so sharply it was almost a shriek.

"See, normally I would completely agree, but here's the thing: you're falling in love with a 200-year-old dead vampire who is the brother of the vampire who for all intensive purposes is married to my sister, and I had to carry you home while you were moaning and groaning all the way back to this house. And since you are also thusly living under my roof," his face was inches from mine. "Like it or not princess, your sex life _is_ now my business."

I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue, but I knew he could see the intense red in my face as I felt my skin burn under the embarrassment.

"I just don't want you to get hurt again," Jeremy finally spoke more tenderly.

I had to stop for a moment, and my hands were suddenly very interesting as I played with them to distract my eyes from starring into Jeremy's.

"Why do you care so much?" I finally asked. When I looked up, his look was hard: defensive.

"I don't know," he finally answered. "Maybe because when you first got here, you reminded me of Bonnie."

I felt myself involuntary swallow. This was uncomfortable.

"But then when I realized how helplessly you got thrown into all of this, and how everyone seemed to be against you, you reminded me of my sister before all this mythology tore her apart."

"Elena?" I questioned, confused.

"Yea," he replied with a bittersweet smile. "She was different before she became a vampire. Happy person, or at least she tried to be. She tried to stay strong for everyone, and she tried to fend for herself, never hurt anyone—but she fell in love with a Salvatore and it ruined her life."

* * *

><p>I flipped through the page in frustration, but without knowing what exactly I was looking for, flipped through centuries old grimoire of hundreds upon hundreds of spells was not helping anyone.<p>

Grunting, I finally gave up and let my body fall back into the crunchy dead leaves and grass beneath the willow tree.

What was I doing here? There were no such things as coincidences. This was a key fact about the supernatural world. Yet, I was brought to study mythology, brought to a city where the man only I can dream of lived and died in, and now I'm falling in love with said dead man who so happens to be a vampire, sacrifice himself to save his family, and is now stuck in some hellish dream-limbo.

And I died and miraculously came back to life the same way I died only with vampire blood in my system. This could not all be a coincidence.

Was I meant to help Damon cross over? Was he stuck in this _'in between' _unable to fully die but never to be alive either? But if I crossed him over…I would have to say goodbye to someone I was getting _very_ emotionally attached to.

No. I would be saying goodbye to someone _I was in love with._

"Shit," I grunted into the air, burying my face in my hands. This was a disaster. This was exactly what Jeremy warned me about. I came to Mystic Falls wanting to erase Damon Salvatore from my mind, and I ended up not only in bed with him, crying over him, and befriending him, but falling for him. This was becoming a disaster. I was an utter disaster.

"Damon," I sighed into the air under the softly dancing willow tree vines. "What in the world am I supposed to do with you?" There had to be a reason. There had to.

But three hours after searching page by page through my grimoire and I wasn't any closer from learning anything new than I was from kissing Damon in the real world under this same tree. I felt the tinge of guilt at that thought.

I would _never_ get the opportunity to kiss Damon under this tree. I could never act out my fantasy of sitting here with Damon, my body between his legs, my back leaning into his chest with his chin just perfectly fit into the crook of my neck, his arms strongly around my body, sweet nothings in my ears. We wouldn't ever be able to go out on a real, human date, kiss in the moonlight, make love in the early morning sunrise, go to the beach, go swimming, go dancing, be seen, be unseen, anything. Damon would never be able to see the tree, see how much his brother tried to keep his grave safe, how much he was loved out here. He would never breathe, never sleep, never eat, never live again. And I wanted him. God, I wanted him to _so much_ it hurt.

I had to swallow hard at the sudden constricting, thick, lump in my throat, and as my hands went up to my suddenly itchy eyes, I found my skin moist and I sighed.

_Oh goodness Elle. You're in puppy love now? A hormonal teenager crying under a tree next to her dead boyfriend's grave? What _is_ wrong with you?_

Another sigh. It didn't matter what inner monologue my mind conjured, I was getting too deep into this already. Maybe it was because I knew I had been dreaming of him for years, maybe it was because the more I learned out here, the more beautiful a picture of him I painted, maybe it was just the recent sexual nature of this convoluted relationship, but I was head over heels for Damon Salvatore. His thought was poisoning my mind, my skin, my senses, my everything. I was absorbed in the thought and imagination of Damon Salvatore.

Lost in the thoughts clouding my brain, I watched the long flowing branches of the willow tree. The air was almost perfectly still, so their movement was so slight one would have to watch them for a time to notice any movement. The sun was growing across the sky and beginning its descend for the next few hours.

Realizing I had in fact fled the Gilbert house without even letting the protective Jeremy Gilbert know of my whereabouts, I realized it probably was reckless to be out and about so vulnerable now after someone had successfully already killed me once. Without a second thought, I finally swung my body up to a sitting position and instantly froze.

A female body just barely shorter than me stood tall and thin just a few feet behind the tree, starring right into my eyes. There was something wicked in the air, I rose slowly, my grimoire in my arms, eyes never leaving this stranger's gaze, and as I reached my full standing height, the young woman gave a devilish smile.

"So its true, there's another witch in Mystic Falls."

There was something strange in the air-a dark, mystic energy. It was strange and it was different, yet there was something recognizable in the unnatural organic flow of energy in the space around this place growing sacred in my heart.

"Curious," she began walking in an arc around me. "Curious," her hands were connected behind her back, dark eyes following me, watching me, observing me like a prey. "Curious," she repeated a third time, and I instinctively held my book closer. This was not good. This was not natural.

A witch from down the country with more power than even a Bennett, how curious," she mused slowly, sinisterly.

I felt the hair prickle at the back of my neck.

"And you died, too," she finally stopped when my back was to Damon's tree.

"Who are you?" I finally managed to strain some sounds.

Her eyes twinkled. "Powerful enough to resurrect one's self, but not to recognize her own kind.

My eyes went wide.

"You're a witch."

She smiled. "Very good, _Elle._" At the sound of my name my skin chilled over. She knew who I was without an introduction. I didn't need to think much to suddenly know this wasn't the first time this witch had seen me.

"What are you doing here?"

Her head tilted. "I could ask you the same question," each word dragged out slowly like poison spreading. "I'm here for the same reason you are."

Everything was silent.

"Damon Salvatore."


	13. Chapter 12: Souls

**Chapter 12: Souls**

* * *

><p>I was frozen in my place. My heart was pounding in my chest; my ears rang loudly with the sounds of my pulse.<p>

"Now Elle, why are you so surprised? Have my warnings not been loud enough?"

"Y-you," I stuttered, my world crashing in on me. "You killed me. You were the one _threatening_ me."

She tilted her head and smiled sinisterly up from long lashes, dark blue eyes boiling with darkness. "I needed to make sure the rumors were true-that you are the witch I need."

"So you killed me?" I yelled out. She began her rotation once more, her steps light on the crunchy flooring of dry leaves and grass.

"If you came back to life, I knew you were the one. That's why I only sent for attack when you had the handsome Gilbert at your side."

I blinked. Jeremy. This had all been set up-the attack after dinner, the shooting, and the warnings… "Why did you need Jeremy?"

"I needed to make sure he'd give you his blood before you died," she answered manner-of-factly, voice soft and silken like that of a predator lulling its prey into a false sense of security. "I needed to make sure it was true what they said about your powers."

"What powers?" I was frustrated and scared, left alone with a witch trying to kill me and playing games at the same time.

"Your power to secure the soul."

A sudden silence fell down on the cemetery. With one foot an inch from Damon's grave, I was frozen in my spot, starring into the sinister smile with dark blue eyes.

"You had no idea, did you?" She mocked me again.

I blinked.

"You didn't question how you survived death without turning? Curious…"

She started circling once more, but this time my eyes didn't follow.

_You have the power to secure the soul._ My chest was pounding and I finally took a breath. Everything was overwhelming.

"I don't understand."

She stopped, and when I glanced up, she turned her head to the side once more, that evil smile once more on her lips and a slow blink of her eyes. "Do you know how a human becomes a vampire, Elle?"

She was pacing once more, but this time I followed her.

"Someone needs to die with vampire blood in there system," I answered.

"Yes," she drug out slowly, ending the word like the hiss of a snake. "And what happened when you died with Jeremy Gilbert's blood in your system?"

I had to release a deep breath. "I came back a human."

"You came back _exactly_ as you were. Do you know why you came back, Elle?" She paused for an answer but my mouth was silent. "Because you are the witch we have all been waiting for. You can _secure a soul to its body._ And if you have a soul, you won't become a vampire."

The weight of her words suddenly hit me like a freight train. My knees gave out, and I fell kneeled on the grass, breathing irregular, eyes wide, and skin cold.

"I can bring people back?"

"Well of course not," she played slowly. "You can only reattach the soul to a body before the soul has crossed over."

I couldn't believe my ears. Everything she was saying…everything being explained…I had only one thought.

"Damon?"

"Mr. Salvatore can not be brought back, Elle."

I closed my eyes then, feeling a whole new pain in my bones.

"That's what I'm here for, to make sure he dies—permanently."

My blood ran cold. Everything was frozen around us. Everything felt like death in that moment. Cold, frozen, death.

_To make sure he dies—permanently._

"You," the sounds came out like shaken fear. "You want to kill him?"

She smiled, looking at me, her eyes deadly. "Of course. The world can't risk the return of Damon Salvatore."

I swallowed hard. She didn't want me dead, she wanted to make sure Damon disappeared forever.

"But you're going to make this difficult aren't you?"

I looked up at her eyes, silence between us for a moment.

"You've fallen in love with the eldest Salvatore, haven't you?"

Her smile widened. "I know a few who can't resist the seductive smile of Damon Salvatore."

"No," I finally answered.

"No?" She question. "Its not just the sex? My dear, he's Damon-its always just the sex–unless it's the blood. If your not feeding him your blood, you're feeding him your body. There is no love with Damon Salvatore unless you're a Petrova doppelganger."

"He loves me." I was defiant.

"He loves the idea of humanity," she spoke softly.

My mind wandered. I felt the leaves around my feet rustle as the power started to absorb their movements and energy.

"So defensive," she toyed. "The young witch absorbing power for an attack. How original."

I didn't say anything. I was realizing my chances were becoming bleak. I'd left the Gilbert house this morning happy and without even informing my only protector of my whereabouts and now I may easily never return. And Damon. I'd left him with a confession of love…but if I died now, would I be able to find him again?

"You can attack me all you want, Elle—it won't make a difference. I can find another body to overtake, there are many young witches attempting to contact me."

My mind paused then.

"Who are you?" I finally mustered to ask. Her look was amused to finally receive the question.

"Why don't you ask Jeremy?" She turned then and Jeremy was standing directly behind her, his shoulders tense, his eyes dark, his face wearing the look of danger—a vampire about to attack, dangerously protective. She smiled at him, and his eyes followed her when she walked up to him. She reached a delicate hand up to his face and his skin shivered when her thin fingers softly stroked his skin. Their eyes met, and his façade fell instantly.

She leaned up, there lips inches apart, Jeremy frozen in his wonder.

"I've missed you, Jere,"She whispered before their lips met. She withdrew slowly, her hand still soft on his handsome face as both expressions were suddenly matched: soft, tender, loving looks.

"Bonnie."

And the girl suddenly fell back. Jeremy caught her before she hit the floor; her body slumped over his arm like a dead weight. Her eyes were closed; her face was so familiar, yet this was instantly a different person.

Jeremy eyes suddenly met mine and I saw something different in his brown eyes than I'd ever witnessed in the protective vampire before: pain.

"Jeremy…what just happened?" I shook in fear at him. His eyes fell down at the girl in his arms, motionless and almost dead.

"Bonnie just possessed this girl."

My eyes widened. "Bonnie? As in your ex, Bonnie?"

His eyes rose up to mine and he swallowed.

* * *

><p>Everyone was on red alert. Stefan was pacing anxiously across the old wood floors, Elena watching him intently in her chair, arms crossed on her chest, and Jeremy was watching over the sleeping girl on the sofa.<p>

"And you're sure it was Bonnie?"

"No Stefan, I just told you that to scare you—I'm positive." Jeremy stood up and next to his sister. I was beginning to feel very overwhelmed and very worn out.

_Could I bring Damon back to life? Did I really have the means to do that?_

"Elle," someone repeated, and when I looked up everyone was watching me.

"I'm sorry…what?"

"What did she say to you before I showed up?" Jeremy repeated his question previously ignored in my thoughts.

"She…" I had to pause for a moment. Jeremy was watching me intently; his face was strong but his eyes showed his heart-confused and hopeful. But this girl he had once loved-the one who was taken from him like so many others-had just told me she was responsible for my death.

"She told me I had powers." I wasn't lying; I was omitting the painful truth. Here was a man I had really grown to like, protective in his rightful nature, he was the one watching out for me when I stumbled into the supernatural war zone that is Mystic Falls, and he had given me a place in his home. But as he sat here now, next to his sister, watching me and waiting for some hopeful news…I had only news to break his heart.

My head was spinning then, I felt my skin feel tight my veins wobble oddly.

"I think I need a bathroom," I announced standing. Jeremy stood immediately himself, and all eyes were on me. Jeremy looked at me with the face of sympathy as I almost _felt _my skin turn green in the nausea of these overwhelming sensations and emotions, but as soon as I saw him move I raised a hand to stop him.

"I'm fine Jere, I just…I just need to breathe."

He put on a false face with a nod and pointed towards the stairs. As I walked in the direction, the three remaining conscious being exchanged looks.

_My life is a mess,_ I thought gloomily as my feet climbed the first step. I felt lightweight-but not in a good way. I felt like I was being wisped away. I was smoke, so thin and fragile to be disturbed and broken by the softest movements. And as I progressed up the stairs, I could feel my chest tightening, like there was a force squeezing it tightly until my face burned and my eyes stung.

My stomach churned and I suddenly felt like I wanted to vomit. I rushed up to the top of the stairs and down the hall, straight into the half open door of the appropriate room, and as soon as I fell to my knees in front of the porcelain bowl, everything rotten inside me found it escape.

My stomach wretched powerfully, my body violently releasing its poisons.

It hurt. It hurt so much I didn't know how to cope. The bile rose in my throat and I choked back as I released back into the antique toilet. When I stopped the choking, and I felt my body finally empty with nothing left to release, I weakly pulled the flush handle and rested my head on my folded arms on the toilet bowl. The first sob released itself as the sound of a flushing bowl echoed through the room and everything fell silent as the quiet tears fell across my skin.

I felt empty. I couldn't comprehend how feeling so happy could bring so much pain too. I felt in love—no, I felt head-over-heals, total infatuation, soul-mates-style love. But that love brought on so much dread, so much gloom and so much pain.

"_Damon…" _I sobbed into my arms. This wasn't fair. I knew nothing was fair in the world. If the world were fair, I would know my birth parents, I wouldn't be a witch, and a witch who died 17 years ago wouldn't be hunting me down. If life was fair, I would have stayed in Florida, continued classes in some boring subject and progressed to getting a job and making a career. If life were fair, I would have fallen in love with Damon Salvatore when he was alive. I would be able to bring him back.

I wiped my mouth and moved away from the toilet, leaning against the bathroom wall, holding my knees tightly to my chest.

I just didn't understand. Why was this all happening? Stories and myth spoke of a form of "divine intervention" leading them to a greater purpose…this wasn't divine intervention. This was my bewitched nature cursing me.

Bonnie Bennett was haunting me. Bonnie Bennett, ancestor of Emily Bennett, one of the reasons Damon and Stefan Salvatore could live as long as they did, was now hunting me down and trying to permanently vanquish Damon into the emptiness of eternal death for a soulless creature.

But as I opened my eyes, let my head fall back against the tiled wall and starred at the ceiling, I felt like the world was trying to swallow me in. I was cursed. I was cursed to not be able to live with someone I loved, and yet not be able to die for him either. What was the point in it all?

I sighed deeply, feeling at last that through all this turbulence, I could find some air to breathe, however stale and poisoned the air was. That pale impression on the surface of my chest ached and as I clutched it with my hand the painful reminder of my unbelievably living. But even in this dismal time, sitting on the second floor of the Salvatore Boarding House bathroom wasn't helping me or Damon or Jeremy or anyone, so I stood finally, washed my mouth and my face with water in the sink, and stepped out the threshold of the bathroom doorway.

I breathed in deeply. The Salvatore halls were just as one would expect 19th to early 20th century architecture to be: wood, wood, wood. Old but polished dark, hardwood floors, hardwood walls with ornate moldings of three different levels, beautiful wood door frames, and lustrous gold frames of paintings as old as the home itself. As I slowly made my way down the half, and ran my fingertips lightly over the patterns of the railing of the walls. Swirls and floral vine patterns reminded me of the magic in my body. Damon once lived here. Damon once walked down these halls, slept in these rooms, lived under this roof. Did he like it here? Did it haunt his past? He was tortured, I new that. Never given a chance to speak for himself, he was outcast against his sibling-the less preferred of the two.

Reaching the end of the top of the stairs once more, I released the wall and glanced back once more before heading down the steps, but something caught my eyes.

Past the bathroom I had stepped in moments earlier, there was one lone door standing closed among an open hall. My mind wandered, that unexplainable pull began to grow and I released the stairs and stepped back towards the closed door.

Every room in this house was left ajar for air to flow in the antique air-less halls. Except for this room with the brass handle. I reached the door and felt my heart rate begin to rise. It wasn't locked, it was simply closed but however I felt the way I felt, I knew this door had been closed for a while—for years.

My fingers grasped the ornate handle, turned it, and pushed as the door silently swung open and an overwhelming feeling of suffocation overtook me. I let out a constricted gasp, the tears welling in my eyes, my throat tightening, closing is a painful sob as I looked inside the closed off room. No one needed to tell me whose room it was, I knew immediately. It looked like him, it felt like him, and sensed of his presence.

This was Damon's room.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

Hey guys! Once again, thanks for reading and please let me know any thoughts, questions or comments you have on anything of the story thus far!

Also, just a heads up for the older readers, there is a sort of "After the Fade" extended scene between Damon and Elle that happened after the fade out of Elle's dream at the beginning of chapter 11 and her waking up. Its rated M for some juicy lemons there, so only read it if that tickles your fancy. You can find it under my profile, or here:

.net/s/7419802/1/After_the_Fade_Bring_Me_Back_extended_scenes

Thanks for reading!

~ Liz


	14. Chapter 13: The Ring

**Author's Note:**

Yea, I'm not even going to bother explaining my 3-week delay. I'm just too busy and sleep deprived to even muster that.

Not the strongest chapter, but there is a point to it.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13: The Ring<strong>

* * *

><p>The air was thick and stale like a room closed off for years—17 years. But it wasn't the old air that caused this constricting feeling deep in my throat, it was the <em>sense<em> of this room. It felt so empty and cold and dead, and then yet it felt so comfortably familiar—it felt like _Damon._

My quiet footsteps echoed through the walls as I stepped forward, leaving the door as I did to quietly rest almost closed with just a crack to the hall, my entire body mesmerized by this room. This room centered around one main feature: the enormous classic but modern four-poster bed centered square in the room's four walls. I let my fingers lightly drag over the dusty, silken comforter as I passed and the thought of the last time Damon slept in this bed alive came to mind.

_Did he know it was the last night he'd sleep here?_

The hardwood walls had paintings and mirrors and shelves of different books, but relevant to the size of the massive suite, it was fairly bare. I smiled when I cornered original copies of classics I recognized. A classic leather chair by the bed, perfect for reading—not that I expected much downtime form Damon Salvatore. The last decade of his life was almost torture.

I stopped back at the other side of the bed, looking down at the geometric earthy comforter and off-white sheets. My fingers ran over the smooth, silky exterior of his comforter…it was warm in the room. It was beautiful. But it was so dead and bittersweet with its owner never to walk its floors again.

This was Damon's room. The room he'd lived in and out of for his almost 200 years of existence. Possibly one of the last spaces he walked before his death.

My footsteps were soft and silent over the old flooring. A thin layer of dust had accumulated over every surface-but it was so beautiful. Off to the side was an all-stone walled bathroom fit for a king.

Very Damon.

I stood facing the window. It was wide and open and overlooked the forestry behind the boarding house. My arm reached out for a bedpost but when my fingers made contact the shattering frozen feeling struck up my spine like lightning.

I gasped out loud suddenly at a petrifying freeze as my eyes went white, my body went rigid and my ears roared out deafeningly.

_The room rematerialized, this time occupied. _

_Damon was standing in that same spot I had just been in, back towards the door, face towards the black, lifeless night. He was just looking out, no words or expressions emitted from his face. He looked empty and pensive._

"_Yes, Elena?" He unexpectedly spoke and without a sound Elena could be seen at the door, not at all surprised he had heard her._

"_Damon…" She started slowly, worriedly._

"_Elena…" he dragged out back in an imitation. He turned around to her, but this time his face was more relaxed, hiding his empty coldness of moments prior._

"_I want to make sure you're alright, Damon," she spoke softly stepping inside. _

"_Today six different people I tried to protect died-including you," he spoke back matter-of-factly, stepping forward too. They were both now a foot apart in the center of the room looking at each other. "Why wouldn't I be fine?" He asked, but she knew what he was saying._

"_It wasn't your fault, Damon."_

"_Of course not Elena, its never anyone's 'fault' with you, is it?" His tone grew surprisingly dark, features tightened and tensed, as he got closer to her, eyes boring into hers. "You can _always_ find the best in people, right?"_

"_Damon, I-" she tried to speak but he didn't let her._

"_You what, Elena? You didn't mine watching him kill Tyler?" His expression darkened suddenly. "Felt nothing as he ripped through Bonnie?" His eyes grew red, his skin started to bubble over dark, black veins around his beautiful face. "You're fine that your brother died in front of you?" He bit back so sharply it cut through the tension like a stake._

"_Damon!" Elena finally yelled, successfully quieting him. The first tears were falling down her broken, brown eyes. "Enough," she spat. Her pain was as obvious as the moon, so evident on her petite frame and delicate face. Damon's body changed too, calming down, becoming saddened, himself, and sympathetic. He was mirroring her every feeling and movement, his body language perfectly in tuned with hers. He was heart-breakingly in love with her._

"_It wasn't your fault," she repeated more softly. "You can't save me this time."_

"_You've become what I hate most about myself." Elena's face turned to his in part shock at his words._

"_Then don't become what I hate most about myself and let you or your brother die for me."_

_His eyes shot up to hers at that but he kept his façade. _

"_Promise me you won't put yourself in danger for me, Damon—not again."_

_His lips parted just lightly, pale eyes canning her brown ones for a second, but he remained silent._

"_Damon, promise me," she pleaded. "Promise me you're not going to get yourself in trouble again to protect me."_

_He took both her hands in his, pulling her a step closer and locking there eyes._

"_Just promise me I won't lose you too," she pleaded quietly._

"_I promise, Elena," he finally said._

_Her lips sprouted a slow, sad smile and she then glanced at him for a moment before awkwardly wrapping her arms around him for a quick embrace. Damon didn't move and remained stiff in the hug until Elena let go, smiled up at him one more time before leaving his room and closing the door behind her._

_Damon turned back to the window, letting out a large sigh. He was torn, tortured and pensive. His hands were playing with the large blue finger on his finger as he kept starring out that window before stopping and glancing down at his hands._

_A sad smirk graced his lips as he slid the large ring off and brought it to his eyes._

"_I won't need you anymore," he spoke to the ring before turning and walking towards the farthest bedside table of his room. He glanced at the ring one more time before setting it down, sliding it back to the far corner of the table and turning and heading out of his room._

_He paused at the door way, turned and suddenly starred directly into my eyes._

I gasped out loudly and crumbled to my knees.

My chest was heaving in deep breaths, my heart roaring in my ears under my own pulse.

This _didn't_ just happen. I _couldn't have just seen this._

"Oh God…" I whispered to myself standing quickly and turning right to that table I had just seen Damon rest his ring. I ran over to the side, running my hands on its surface without finding anything.

"Please," I pleaded as I opened the drawer and looked through its contents.

"Please don't be here and show me it true. Please be-" something caught my eyes on the floor, to the corner of the small end table just beside the northwest bedpost.

I fell to my knees and reached out, and as soon as the small, cool, metallic surface of a ring came into contact with my fingers, I knew it was all true.

That was a vision—no the future, not a dream, but the true past.

And it changed everything.

I slowly brought the ring up to my hands as I felt the first tear slide slickly down my skin.

_How could any of this be? He couldn't have had it all planned…Damon Salvatore was staked-it was an accident, completely unplanned. He died a hero saving a loved one like taking a bullet at the last second. It had all been a tragic accident no one could have anticipated._

But it wasn't.

Somehow, for some reason, Damon knew he was going to die. _He had it all planned._ And at this moment I felt more torn than ever before, half my body in agony at this new truth of this death, the other half enraged that he'd lied all these years-set himself up as an innocent bystander when he had his death planned all along.

Digging my fingers into my head and clutching at my scalp I had to choke back all the thought that were suffocating me.

He knew it. He knew.

"Elle?" I dropped the ring in my lap instantly; flipping my head back to the door so quickly I felt my neck snap loudly in protest. Jeremy was standing just outside the doorframe, peering inside awkwardly like a child sneaking into his parent's locked bedroom. When he noticed my face though, his entire presence changed and he instantly appeared next to me.

"Elle, what's wrong?" He put one hand to the side of my face, his body crouched low next to mine, looking into my broken eyes. Starring back into his worried but warm expression, I knew there wasn't any point in hiding it from Jeremy and I pulled the ring up to him.

"He knew," I whimpered shakily. Jeremy glanced at the large ring once, than back at my eyes, and at glancing back at the ring a second time, lightly took it into his free hand gently. The ring flipped into his palm as the large engraved crest with a 'D' shined dully up at him and he registered whose it was.

"Where did you find this?" He asked me incredulously.

I looked up teary at him. "Right where Damon left it the night before he died." And then Jeremy registered what I was saying.

"You saw him here-you had a flashed vision." It wasn't a question and I nodded slowly. Jeremy closed his eyes for a moment, processing all this new information, his hand closing around Damon's enchanted ring for a moment before reopening his eyes with a whole new strange expression.

"He knew he was going to die, Jeremy," I whispered at him low. "He planned it all along, and he lied to Elena."

"I…but…" Jeremy was at a loss of words, confusion and some hurt splayed on his handsome face. "What do you mean 'he knew'?"

"He knew, Jere," I repeated myself. This time I clutched his hand with the ring firmly. "Elena asked him to promise he wouldn't get himself hurt for her anymore-to stay safe, and _he lied._ He went along with it, then took off this ring," I pulled the ring out of his palm at took his gaze for a second. "And then said how he would '_never need it again'_."

Jeremy's eyes were transfixed on mine. In that moment he'd never looked so torn, confused and lost, yet there was something strange about that expression.

"Elle-" he began quietly before an ear-shattering scream broke through air like a whip and both our heads snapped to the open door. Before I could glance back at Jeremy, he was gone and down the stairs. Someone screamed, shouts erupted and loud crashes and crumbles reverberated off the old Salvatore walls.

I jumped to my feet and ran out of the room, but before I could even get to the base of the stairs I heard the familiar voice of Jeremy scream in agony.

I flew down the stairs, and instantly saw Elena face down on the floor, Stefan across the room with an arm definitely facing the wrong direction and Jeremy crouched right in the center of the room, clutching his head and screaming. Against the opposite wall of the room, the girl previously possessed by Bonnie Bennett was standing, blood tricking down her arms, one hand up in a protective stance, but eyes dark with aggression. Suddenly her eyes jumped up to mine, but before I could even think about it, she flew backward, spun in the air and straight through the window behind her.


	15. Chapter 14: Bonnie Bennett

**Author's Note:**

Once again, not going to write some long explanation for my absence. I've just been too busy. (Damn priorities, I'd much rather be writing some Damelle and Jeremy loveliness.)

However, this is the _longest_ chapter to date. I was tempted to cut it, but then I realized it would give you a lot less to read after such a long hiatus, and I wouldn't know where to cut it successfully. So its just about 4000 words. A nice meaty chapter.

A lot is going to happen here, and Damon's ging to make a confession to Elle. Jeremy is the start in this chapter. (Have I mentioned lately how much I adore his character?) And if the very ending confuses you...it'll be explained soon. Its something thats going to bring Jeremy and Elle closer together **_AND_** give Elle a crucial look into Damon's character and flaws and reasoning behind such.  
>Once more, I love your lovely, lovely reviews! You guys are awesome!<br>Read and review please and let me know what you think of the knew knowledge learned here and what you predict for the future and/or what happened in the past. (If you so wish.)

Much Love,  
>~ Liz<p>

PS:  
>If you never saw it, I posted an "extended scene" one-shot about a month back. Its between Elle and Damon, completely in her dream and full of lemony goodness. Its without a doubt rated M for<strong> mature audiences only. <strong>Look it up under my profile and enjoy it if that tickles your fancy.

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><p><strong>Chapter 14: <strong>**Bonnie Bennett**

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><p>"What the <em>hell<em> just happened?" I yelled in half aggravation and half fear running immediately over to Jeremy who was now on the floor still clutching his head.

Stefan looked up at me with wide eyes from his spot over a still unconscious Elena.

"Are you ok?" I asked Jeremy worriedly as he finally opened his eyes.

"Yea," he stiffed sorely. "Just peachy. Funny, I thought you were the mortal human here," he looked up at my eyes and I had to smile, rolling them slightly and letting go of his arm now to focus back on Stefan and a coming-to Elena. Jeremy stood up quickly and almost instantly disappeared running outside to the unconscious girl on the lawn. Now being able to think clearly about everything happening, I felt my head feel swirl.

"What happened, Stefan?" I asked again.

"That was a witch," he answered while lifting a very unsteady Elena. "And one who knows a lot about fighting off vampires," he answered matter-of-factly. I felt my feet stumble with dizziness and reached out for support before Jeremy appeared back out of nowhere catching my arms in his strong hands. I jumped a little but then smiled gratefully.

"Was she being possessed by Bonnie?" I asked no one in particular as I made my way to a seat. Jeremy kept his hand on my shoulder however.

"Are you feeling ok?"

"I'm fine, Jeremy. Where is she? I didn't kill her, did I?"

"No, she's fine. A little torn up but nothing that some time can't heal." He was still eyeing me and with Elena now disappearing somewhere, Stefan made his way over to my chair too. "Are you _sure_ you're ok, Elle?"

"Yea, I'm fine," I lied quickly. My head was feeling very light however, and as I tried to step around the Gilbert man, I swayed slightly and Jeremy caught me swiftly.

"You are a really bad liar," Jeremy pointed out bluntly, but before I could even reply to his comment, a long arm collided with the back of my knees and I was hoisted up into his arms.

I rolled my eyes, trying to break away from Jeremy's grasp but at the same time clinging to his neck in fear of the young Gilbert dropping me.

"Jeremy, put me down," I tried to tell him firmly, but he was already headed up the stairs.

"You must really think I'm stupid-don't forget I dated a witch. You're over doing it on the magic Elle, you need rest," he told me headed up the stairs. I wanted to inform him that I never got weak from magic, but when I actually glanced at his face there was something strange in his expression.

He turned at the top of the stairs and headed straight for the previously closed-off room: Damon's room. Entering the threshold of the bedroom suite, he kicked the door closed behind us without so much as a tremble and then made his way to bed, and sat me down at the edge, bending down in front of me so he could look me in his eyes as he brushed away some of my hair out of my pale skin.

"I know you don't get tired," he started off softly. "But I needed an excuse to..." His face pointed towards the door, and I understood immediately what he was motioning. I waved my hand to door, it shivered for a second and then I turned back to Jeremy.

"They can't hear us," I still spoke low looking into his torn expression. His eyes were usually warm and inviting but this time there was something different about them. It wasn't just worry, but almost a silent understanding in Jeremy's warm brown eyes. There was a strange, unspoken understanding between us. He knew what I was thinking about. He knew how I wanted to fall apart—the emotional rollercoaster of the day's events tearing me apart from the inside out, and without even saying a word, I felt my stomach churn and my eyes start to sting and that pang in my heart almost become unbearable under all this turmoil I couldn't relieve.

"What did you see earlier?" He finally asked me and I felt the first tear roll across my skin.

"He knew it all along-he knew he was going to die."

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><p><em>I felt all my muscles go lazy and soft in the deep spell of slumber. I sniffled tearfully, but the feeling of a strong body holding me close let me melt into another's person as I instinctively buried my face deeper into the person's chest inhaling a warm, deliciously comforting scent. My mind was cloudy and dark, feeling both so empty and destroyed yet so visible and full at the same time. Someone was running their thumb very softly over the skin of my arms in tiny fans, and I felt my mind and body become more lucid as I realized that I was in fact being cradled in someone's embrace.<em>

_Stirring only slightly, I finally slowly opened my eyes to see Damon's ever more angelic face resting against my forehead, his arms around my body and my body in his lap like a protective cocoon. I sighed deeply and let my eyes close again letting my self be absorbed into this man I was so torn with._

"_Damon…" I whispered softly, breathing in deeply._

"_I've got you," he hushed back tenderly, holding me close. But it didn't help. That metaphorical hole I felt wide in the depths of my chest—the hole old romance novels and broken-hearted songs referred to day in and out—never felt so destroyed and fresh in pain like this moment. I never felt so helpless in every move and motion._

"_You knew…" I whispered the two words so deeply encroached in my mind and heart. Damon froze. He didn't need to ask what I was talking about or what exactly I meant—he knew. He always knew I'd find out one day. _

"_You knew you were dying and you just let it happen."_

"_I had it planned that way," he finally confessed. I was completely coherent now and at the weight of his words I felt the giant replication of his real-life bed grow frigid and hard and for that moment his touch was no longer a comfort._

"_What?" I questioned in disbelief. His hands were in his lap, his eyes starring at them for a moment, but when they lifted to my own, that crystal blue revealed everything and reiterated his confession._

"_It was all part of the plan. I knew I was going to die, because I set it up to be so."_

_I felt my head pulse and my ears roar. "Oh, Damon," I moaned clutching my temples._

"_I didn't have any other options," he spoke quickly and upon noticing my empty reaction, grabbed my hands in his and between our bodies so I was looking into his grey-blue eyes. "You don't understand it Elle," he started swiftly._

"_Then make me understand. Explain it to me Damon," I was starring at him defiantly now._

_His eyes were shifting from each of mine, mouth just slightly cracked for a moment and I suddenly realized this man in front of me was nearly unrecognizable to the one from seventeen years ago; the night before he died._

"_What plan requires you to die?"_

"_The one where you take down an original and save your brother," he blurted out all at once. His voice was getting defensive, rough—but his eyes were showing something else: guilt. _

"_We didn't have anything left to try. Everything we did to try and kill Klaus was killing us and it was destroying everything," his voice wasn't angry anymore but rather becoming low. "And I'd talked to Bonnie about this idea—this spell she had. I couldn't tell Stefan because he always has to be the damn hero and would probably try it himself, and I really wanted a different option…"_

"_But then Elena died," I whispered. His head was low, his hands in his lap, and he wasn't looking at me._

"_Damon…" I started but he didn't move or glance my way. I sat up then, scooted forward on the enormous bed and faced him. Sitting on my knees, I reached forward with my hand on the rough skin of his face and he instinctively turned into it slightly before he took my hands in his, bringing them to his lap and finally opened his eyes._

_My eyes met with his and I just starred for a moment. They were different. They'd never quite so human and quite so hopeless either, but they were still him_.

"_How did you die?" I finally asked so low, he would never have heard me as a normal human being._

"_You've seen my proof," he told me, but after a second thought he let go of my hands and began unbutton his navy button-down. He opened the cotton apart and that deep red ring slightly off-center on his chest burned into my eyes like a hot poker._

"_If anybody tried to kill Klaus, he had it all planned that Stefan and anyone else we cared about would go down with him."_

_I was silent as I listened to him, my eyes shifting back and forth from his eyes to the bloody scar on his non-beating chest._

"_So Bonnie came up with this idea to spell a stake so when Klaus would try to use it…"_

"_It would kill him," I finished his sentence once more. _I felt my eyes sting with emotion and dampen under tears.

_He looked up, a sad smirk on his lips. "Klaus staked me, we both went down. _

_I was silent as he spoke, so when he paused there wasn't a single sound between us. Damon finally moved, gently taking my hand in his and beckoning me forward and as I silently let him pull me into his body and against the headboard of the massive bed, I let my body mold into his like I had so grown accustomed to. His head rested against the top of my head that was resting against his shoulder._

"_I love you Damon," I spoke low._

"_I love you too," he whispered back._

* * *

><p>"Elle," that voice spoke again. As I groggily opened my eyes, the hazy hues of my surroundings came into focus and what was a moment again Damon's comforting body, turned into a few old blankets wrapped up in my dreams. It was like an emptiness being reevaluated every time I kissed Damon goodbye and woke up alone.<p>

"Elle?" The voice asked once more and this time my eyes snapped up at Jeremy's pleasant but drained eyes. He'd never looked so dead before.

"I'm up," I groaned tiredly sitting up, all the joints and bones of my body crackling and popping in protest as I stretched. "What's up, Jere?"

"The girl woke up, and she's not cooperating. We can't get within eye distance of her with our brains exploding," he spoke dryly, despite the most minute sense of sarcasm in how word choice.

"I'm beginning to see why this town doesn't like witches," I spoke low as I headed out the down, the youngest Gilbert close at my heels. As I reached the stairs I could make out the body of Elena crouched low at the bottom steps, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Where's Stefan?" I asked her as I approached the ground floor, but before she even bothered to glance in our direction, the double doors of the library blasted open with a thunderous crashing and Stefan stumbled out in an inhumane speed, the door thrown closed behind him. His eyes were deep red, and blood was dripping between his fingers clutching his ears.

"Stefan," Elena murmured practically materializing next to her love before he could fall to his knees.

"She must be well trained," Jeremy remarked.

"And well pissed," Stefan remarked now wiping off his hands and looking brand new again. "From what I got from her, she been possessed by bonnie for some time. I'm not sure if she's really dangerous or really scared. She's young—younger than you, and she mist have vervain on her somewhere or in her."

"Which leaves me as the only one able to talk to her for a while. Lovely."

"We're not going to make you go in there if you don't want to," Stefan replied at my expression, quickly receiving looks from both Elena and Jeremy as if to say 'yea, she kind of does!'

I smiled but put on my brave face. Taking a deep breath and concentrating for a moment, I felt that power inside my veins warm, my skin vibrate, and my sense emit the red flag of caution.

"Its now or never," I spoke quickly with the handle of door in my hand. Without another moment of hesitation, I swiftly opened the large door and shut it just as quickly behind me. That shield I had up and around me felt a shiver of interference- everyone was right, this was a well-seasoned witch.

The younger girl was sitting in a chair facing the wall opposite the entrance to room. From behind I could see her right arm had a deep gash running down its side, stained dark red from dried blood, it hid multiple tinker cuts and scrapes from her flight through the window. Her wrists and ankles were the less damaged portion of her body and they were tied to the chair. Walking slowly around her, I tried to remember that feral, first girl with the light brown hair and lethal dark blue eyes, but as I round in front of her, she wasn't that same person anymore. Her light brown hair was matted in dirt and some droplets of blood from her wounds, her pretty face contorted and twisted in deep ridges of the emotion in her dark blue eyes: utter fear.

I smiled an encouraging smile to her, but when she looked up and met my pale green eyes, all she did was change into worry.

"What's your name?" I asked astonishingly soft. Her gaze remained strong, but she didn't answer. "Ok, well mine name is Elle, I'm 21 years old which means I've been doing magic a little bit longer than you and people tend to tell me I'm a strong witch because I can stop and block attacks such as the one you're currently emitting towards my brain." The girl's look quickly shifted at the last addition to my statement, but the magic I could feel trying to seep into my energy like a power faded away.

"No one here is going to hurt you if you don't hurt us."

"They're vampires."

"And you're a witch and Bonnie, the witch who was possessing you, is a spirit getting to you from the other side. We're all different."

She didn't seem convinced, but something told me little by little she wanted to believe my words.

"You know, one of those vampires in there dated a witch. He loved her very much, and he tried to protect her until the day he died. He would have saved her too were she not already dead when he reawakened. And just about two weeks ago, he took multiple bullets for me-wood bullets, and he did everything in his power to try and save me."

"But he did save you..." The girl suddenly responded quizzically.

I opened my mouth but empty at words, closed it again. "Well," I started awkwardly. "Not entirely."

The girl's eyes went wide and I opened my mouth to explain when she burst out suddenly.

"You're her," she spoke suddenly. It was time to be confused.

"Your the witch out to bring back the dead from the other side. You have the power."

Without even realizing, I took a step back, my eyebrows tight and head spinning.

"You're trying to bring back Damon Salvatore."

I didn't even breathe.

"I'm supposed to stop you."

"Who are you?" I blurted out all at once.

"Byanca. I think we're related."

"What do you mean, 'I think?' Who sent you?"

"Bonnie Bennett. She told me I had to stop you or all humanity was going to be in trouble."

My eyes were huge, I felt my heart beat skyrocketing; my joints all stiffen, and my skin ignite in fire.

It was true. Bonnie was really on a 17-year-long mission to keep Damon on the other side.

"When did you talk to her?" I asked roughly finally. I stepped up the girl then, getting immediately defensive as all the pieces started to meet together. "Why do you need to kill Damon?" The girls eyes went larger at the sudden fear of my face inches from her and the fury burning in my irises, but before I could say anything the doors blasted opened and Jeremy was instantly feet from me, defensive and alert.

"Why does she need him dead?"

"I-I...I don't know!" She pleaded.

"Why does Bonnie think he's dangerous?"

"I don't know! She pleaded, but I didn't buy it. I wanted to hurt them I wanted to take all my power and throw it on her until her skin turned blue and grey, but in that moment Jeremy touched my arm and my vision flew to his worried eyes. The anger trance broke.

"She was possessed, Elle. She doesn't know."

I looked back at the frightened teenage girl. She was shaking, her eyes burning in fear and panic and I felt the guilt if the whole situation clear my head finally. Jeremy was right-this girl had nothing to do with it. She was nearly a translation between Bonnie and this side. She didn't know anything.

But I knew then how I could get her to know.

"Let me ask Bonnie herself. Jeremy, can you open these locks? I want to contact Bonnie Bennett and I need your help.

"I love being your guinea pig," Jeremy muttered sarcastically.

I cracked a smile taking both his hands in mine, both our eyes firmly closes. "You and Elena are the closest connections to Bonnie, and sense I have a stronger connection to you, I'll have an easier time channeling you too." From the opposite side of the room, the most in-control of the vampire trio, Stefan, had the young girl situated on a couch as he applied some first aid. She was watching my every movement though while cautiously keeping track of Stefan's movement. Elena hovered over Jeremy at a safer distance from the bloody girl.

"I thought you had to use a human to channel a witch from the other side?" I finally had to open my eyes to unleash a glare Jeremy's way. This was not a healthy environment for concentration, nor was it an effective one.

"How old were you again when you turned?" I questioned jokingly. Jeremy rolled his eyes and Elena finally did something I hadn't thought possible on her petite features—she cracked a smile.

"First of all," I continued. "That's false—its usually easier to channel a human because a witch has more of a connection with a human who is still supported by nature than a vampire which has been cast out of the natural cycle of life," Jeremy was finally quiet. "But since A, we really don't need Bonnie possessing another Sabrina the teenaged witch again, B, we are in short supply of humans right now, and C, you had a strong relationship with her at one point in your life, you are the better candidate." All eyes were on me now. Jeremy was focused in my eyes now, and everything else seemed to disappear momentarily as he revisited an old time he never wanted to remember. "And plus, you've had a connection to the other side before, so you'll probably have a better chance of finding her than anyone else. Now close your eyes and concentrate on me and on Bonnie."

Jeremy nodded and closed his eyes. My grip on his hands tightened as I felt that power absorbed. On instinct my lips started to mutter the mangled words of the enchantment. I concentrated on Bonnie's name and absorbed Jeremy's hands into my own until I felt his sources seep into my skin. Distantly I heard someone move as the candles flared wildly around our closed ears but I didn't register it as I concentrated on Jeremy's power in my veins and began humming Bonnie Bennett's name.

Bonnie Bennett. Bonnie Bennett. Bonnie Bennett.

I felt it start to change—Jeremy's power was shifting with his emotions. This unforeseen shift into an almost unbearable pain, unbearable guilt, and unbearable sense of betrayal seeped into my body until I gasped loudly at all the emotions flooded. My skin was on fire, my joints were shattering, my blood vessels all bursting until I could barely concentrate. I had to keep his hands in mine, I had to keep the connection open, but everything was shattering my very soul like a thousands deaths, like being cursed from nature. I held on strong, away from the screaming agony deep in my body as I repeated the name once more this time loud, and then suddenly everything magnified and I screamed.

My hands fell out of Jeremy's, my body convulsed wildly, all the candles went ot, the floor boards and walls vibrated like a bomb imploding inside the old home and the air pierced with an earth shattering scream as everything ripped through my heart like a knife.

And then suddenly everything ended and I heard shouting voices.

"Elle, Elle! Are you ok?"

I was gasping for air, my chest heaving violently like a locomotive gaining speed. Hands were on me, multiple hands of pained bodies that felt like they were bruising my skin but then everything inside my body was suddenly gone and gasping loudly my eyes flew open.

A pair of green eyes and a pair of brown were starring worriedly down at me. Someone's arms was supporting me up and I registered Stefan's lean framing lifting me to a sitting position as the two kept repeating their words of worry. Everyone was speaking at once and my head was echoing their words but when I spotted Jeremy I suddenly raised my hands and they silenced.

Stefan's expression changed and then shifted to Jeremy upon which his grasp on me changed.

Jeremy Gilbert was sitting as before, legs crossed beneath his body, hands palm-up at his knees, eyes closed, face straightforward.

"Jeremy?" I heard Elena's voice begin but I immediately waved her silent. Reaching forward on my electrified muscles, I crawled a step forward to the unmoving vampire. I sat kneeled on the floor inches from his body.

"Bonnie Bennett?"

Dark eyes opened and a whole new soul joined the group.

"They were right—you _are_ strong," a strange voice spoke.


	16. Chapter 15: Humanity Speaks

**Author's Note:**

****Hey guys, just want to quickly say thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for not giving up on this story and sticking with it because I know its taken me a century and a half to update. I've just been so, so busy. I just started a new online shop and it took off a hundred times faster than I expected and I've got ordering coming in from everywhere. [In case you're interested, I make custom made dime and penny jewelry, including bracelets and pendants.] But I have many thoughts and mini plot bunnies running through my brain so I'll try my best to update more quickly.

Once again, I love to read your feedback!  
>~ Liz<p>

****

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><p><strong>Chapter 15: <strong>**Humanity Speaks**

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><p>"Bonnie," I muttered at the soul inside Jeremy's body.<p>

"Hello Elle," they answered back.

"…Bonnie?" Elena stepped forward and questioned cautiously. Jeremy's body turned towards Elena and a smile spread his face.

"Elena," the voice was suddenly tender like two long lost friends reuniting.

But it didn't really change the scene. The air remained thick and heavy, hair standing on end over my skin. The floor creaked lightly and spinning my head I realized the younger girl was standing right behind Stefan, eyeing the situation in fear.

"You've been looking for me," I abruptly turned the attention back to Jeremy's possessed body. Bonnie, somewhere inside Jeremy's mind and soul turned her head to the side, unblinking and unemotional.

"Yes," she spoke slowly, but she didn't elaborate and I had to remind myself the fragility of the situation before biting out a sarcastic reply to her useless answers.

"Why did you need me?"

This time she smiled. "The witches on the other side warned me of you."

"What?" I questioned uneasily. "Why? Why am I of any interest to you?"

"You're very powerful, Elle," it was a matter-of-fact answer. "And you possess certain…_interests_ that pose a threat to the balance."

My face must have revealed my mind because she elaborated only a moment later.

"You're in love with Damon Salvatore."

The room was silent. In that moment nothing moved to twitched or even breathed. In that moment my heart was even silent, frozen in an unexplainable fear.

All eyes were on me however as I remained frozen in the silence of my own nightmare.

"And it's true. You really think you love him." Her statement was true but the exact wording of her phrase took a moment to register in my mind.

"I am," I affirmed. "I-I…" I glanced up and Elena's look was suddenly very tense and very focused on my being. "I love him," I finally confessed at almost a whisper. To my dread and surprise, the possessed Jeremy smiled.

"Of course you do. No woman can resist those Salvatore looks." She turned his head then. "Isn't that right, Elena?"

I glanced up at the adopted Gilbert and to my surprise Elena's face was dark. Deadly.

"What happened to you?" she muttered towards the possessed body of her brother but Bonnie did not respond.

"He doesn't love you, you know," she spoke smoothly.

"He does," this time I defended back strongly. "He loves me as much as I love him."

A wicked smile spread on Jeremy's possessed lips.

"No, he doesn't Elle. He can't love you, he's dead my dear."

"He's not dead in my—"

"Dreams?" She finished. My mouth was opening in mid-syllable, but at her interruption I just froze for an instant before closing my mouth again. "We know who you are and what your doing. Every time you go to sleep, you dream with him. He's alive in your dreams."

I felt all the eyes bore into me again but stayed focused on the witch in front of me.

"You talk, you kiss, you fuck," I swallowed at the last one and felt my face start to redden. "But that's not the real Damon."

"It is," I protested strongly.

Another smirk. "So he's bit you, Elle?"

This time I was silent.

"In the midst of your throes of passion has he consumed the moment to sink his teeth into your skin? Tasted your blood? Asked for that which is the most consuming thing to a vampire?"

"…no, but…"

"And when you were dying, and you appeared before him, soaked in your own blood, your heart beating it out of your body like a fountain, did he even try and taste you?"

"I _love_ him," I leaned darkly into her face. I felt my skin was going to flames but every word she spoke began to feel like a thousand needles in my heart. "I love him," I spoke more weekly this time. "I love him," this time the words trickled out in a sob.

"You love _his humanity._" The last words were whispered so softly but they felt like a sudden earthquake-a shattering of my very core-as the sharpest sop erupted from my chest.

"Damon is dead, Elle," she was suddenly a different person. "And who you are dreaming of is not the same Damon who walked this earth for almost two centuries as a demon of the dark."

"No…" I whimpered like a child. I lifted a hand to my heart as I felt it tighten powerfully as my fingers clung to my shirt and the heavy silver ring dangling beneath its surface. _He was real. He had to be._

"Elle…" Someone spoke behind me but I didn't open my tightly shuteyes.

"Elle…" A hand lightly rested on my shoulder but I instantly flinched away.

"He _is_ Damon," the words felt wrong but they hurt to deny.

"Elle," the voice behind me repeated one last time and I finally snapped my neck back to find at my surprise a tear-stained delicate face of Elena. Her brown eyes were suddenly different. Those eyes weren't the cold, dark vampire-Elena out to protect her family and Damon's name without any sense of emotion. They weren't the eyes I starred into as he blackened in front of me with dark animated veins erupting for her eye sockets. They weren't the eyes that should be attached to two long fangs and a thirst for blood.

They were heart broken, destroyed, and very _human _in that moment_._

"Damon died almost two decades ago," she whispered to me finally and I felt suddenly the emptiest I'd been since I had died and been brought back.

"But he's not," I whispered back. "He's not dead to me," this time my voice was inaudible, a desperation.

"The man you love and see in your dreams Elle," Bonnie's voice suddenly spoke, "is not the same Damon that Elena met 20 years ago. He's not dead to you because it's the fraction of his being that is still alive, suspended between the two sides-but he's _not _the same Damon, Elle. _You need to understand."_

And I felt the tears drip down my cold skin.

"The Damon you love is just a figment now of who he was."

My eyes were shut so tight, my vision was turning white, and fingers clenched that ring under my shirt so hard I felt the joints of my fingers protest in agony. He _was_ real. I couldn't imagine it not being so. I thought about the times I'd been with him, the loving Damon, the warm Damon, the protective Damon…the caring Damon…and then it all made since.

"His humanity," I whispered unexpectedly. I opened my eyes through the glowing lights of my vision and watched possessed-Jeremy's eyes. She was silent for a moment and then the faintest movement as she nodded.

"The surviving part-the part that's stuck in, the in-between is his human part."

This time she smiled. "That's why he could love you so easily. It's that part of him that _can_ love that exists in your dreams. Without the temptations and cravings for blood and lust and power, he's almost completely human-and he's open to love you with his all."

"Oh God…" I moaned in frustration as I released the ring under my shirt and dug both hands into my hair, clutching at my scalp.

"Even if you _could_ bring him back, he wouldn't be the same."

"But its possible," I interjected, eyes flying up to Jeremy's. There was an unsteady connection for a moment before Bonnie spoke through his lips.

"No," she muttered.

I sprouted a sarcastic and frustrated laugh. "Now you are trying to convince me its impossible _to_ bring him back even though you've spent the past weeks trying to stop me from doing the very thing that is supposedly 'impossible'?"

"The Damon you know can not be revived."

But the _whole_ Damon can?"

"No!" Jeremy's possessed eyes were flaming, a sudden air of aggression possessing the air as the witch's grab on his body awakened his vampire fear and power.

"You **can't** bring him back, because if you try, he won't be the one pulled back-the other will."

Silence filled the room.

"If you attempt to bring back Damon," she began again more calmly. "You will bring back Klaus instead."

"So I'll be more careful!" I argued hotly.

"It doesn't matter how 'careful' you are, Elle," Bonnie replied quickly. "This magic does not come without repercussions. The magic that _killed_ Damon will interfere." She was watching the entire information soak into my soul. "Damon didn't just die by magic. He used a spelled stake to die so he could take down another with him. As a consequence, both souls—both humanities of the two deceased beings are sealed in the space between this side and the other. If you try to bring one back, you will bring back whichever being is stronger. Only one was killed by magic and nothing else. But the other had a stake in the heart, and his connection to his body is so faint it is nearly inexistent. If you try and bring Damon back, Klaus will survive instead. Klaus is stronger Elle, because Damon willingly gave up his life to save us all."

_And its come back to bite us in the ass,_ I thought bitterly.

"Its sad," she finally answered again. "The one who died to save us is damned to empty space."

"And to cross him over?" Her eyes locked with mine and for the first time in a while I noticed something different in Jeremy's possessed eyes since we'd contacted Bonnie: sympathy.

"That's a difficult option for you," she answered honestly.

I looked at her now with pleading eyes and even if neither of us spoke, in that moment of silence we made a connection.

"The living part of him would have to join the dead to cross him over."

I felt my heart plummet then, down to the deepest depths beneath my feet at the realization of what her words implied: I would have to kill the man I'd found myself in love with.

"He would be at peace," she suddenly spoke, and my eyes flew up to lock with hers. It was as if the deceased eyes of Bonnie Bennett overshadowed those of the body she was using. I didn't see Jeremy Gilbert anymore, I saw Bonnie Bennett, a witch who had died to save her loved ones, telling me I had to do the same if I wanted to give Damon peace. "He's not at peace Elle, you know that."

Her smile was sad.

"You might make him happy now Elle, and maybe that will make the past seventeen years worth his torture. He finally found someone who chose _him_," I felt Elena's hand tighten on my shoulder, almost to the brink of pain, but it was masked by the heaviness of Bonnie Bennett's words. "And he's in a peace he's never experienced fully, but it will be short lived; you are going to grow older, you are going to want more than what he can offer solely in your dreams, and it will destroy him." She was looking away from my eyes now, and as I glanced in the direction of her gaze I realized her eyes were locked with Elena.

"Elena?" I spoke softly and hesitantly.

"You're different," she whispered towards Bonnie, this time getting a smile from her lost friend.

"17 years of being surrounded by dead witches and ancestors will do that to you," she spoke lightly and to my surprise, Elena's face broke into a smile. This _was _Bonnie Bennett, the deceased best friend of the broken vampire doppelganger who started it all. "You're doing well here though. I've been watching you," she spoke much more tenderly, earning a step forward and a smile from the vampire behind me. "I know you questioned it once, but you're with the right Salvatore," she spoke. "But Elena," Elena's eyes met Bonnie's again. "You need to forgive Stefan for leaving you too. I know we all promised not to leave you, but everyone who died for you, did it because we loved you, and I know you lost part of your heart Elena, but he lost his brother. Can you imagine a loss like that?" Elena was silent now, and when I glanced her way, to my surprise Stefan was standing right beside her, a knowing half apologetic smile on his thoughtful green eyes.

"Elle," Bonnie began once more as I snapped my attention back to my possessed friend. "Tell Jeremy I said I forgive him for everything."

And with that Jeremy's eyes closed and he collapsed to the side.


	17. Chapter 16: Beneath the Willow Tree

**Author's Note:**

Deepest apologies for not posting in like a month. Its been so, so crazy. Life is nuts, I'm graduating next year with my Bachelor's so its now officially grad-school, internship, job-searching time. Hectic.

But enough about that, hope you like the update! I actually started the next chapter already (needed to make sure this route I'm on will actually lead me forward rather than into another writer's block.)

Also, I keep forgetting to mention this!

There is an "extended scene" of sorts I wrote for the first time Damon and Elle sleep together. You can find it under my username, and it _is_ Rated M for appropriate ages only. Its quite the lemon, but if you're into that thing, please check it out. (There may be another coming up to accompany the next chapter too, btw.)

Anyways, happy reading!

Please leave me feedback, I'm really dying to see who thinks Damon will survive the finale or not. Do _you_ think Elle will be able to bring him back? Or will she cross him over and attempt to move on? And what about this humanity thing? Can Elle love the _entire_ Damon?

Lots of Love,

~ Liz

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 16: Beneath the Willow Tree<strong>

"Elle?" A voice shouted into the breeze. The sun was dark and murky behind the glowing horizon. The air was chilling and the shadows stretching across the earth like giants running from the approaching night. In the breeze loose strands of hair brushed across my skin, but I didn't feel them. I didn't feel much of anything as I hugged my knees closer to my chest and wished more than anything this willow tree were the human body it hid beneath its roots. I didn't hear Jeremy's footsteps behind me as he approached, but I knew he was watching me when he didn't call my name anymore and the only noises heard were the rustling of the dangling willow tree branches and leaves.

The branches and leaves above a grave. Damon's grave.

Because he died. He died _17 years ago_ and I couldn't bring him back because his own heart became his own demise.

"Are you ok?" Jeremy asked me quietly from behind me. I didn't answer, and as I starred forward, chin against my kneecaps, shoulders pulled over my neck and my eyes burning like sandpaper under their empty tears, he came and sat beside me, one knee bent up and the other under as he watched me stare emptily into the dying light.

"Elena told me everything Bonnie said," he whispered again.

I felt my eyes close for a moment as my heart plunged into my stomach.

"You wanted to bring him back.

"I love him," I whispered so softly only a supernatural being like Jeremy could have ever heard.

"I know," he answered back without hesitation. "Anyone can tell."

I had to smile a sad smile for a moment feeling my eyes begin to sting against with emotion. "Do you know how long it's been since I cried?" I asked him abruptly. Jeremy glanced at me, a similar bittersweet smile on his lips.

"A whole of one hour?"

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the dying light, but that sad smile stayed on my face. "Before all of this Damon and Mystic Falls thing happened, I don't think I'd cried since…God, in _years._"

"Love does that," he spoke back briskly.

My throat instinctively made a mumbled sound, but I didn't speak any audible words for a moment, my mind wandering off into different thoughts.

"What happens to a vampire's body after they die?" I was starring ahead at the dying light, but out of my peripheral vision I could see Jeremy watching me tentatively.

"When a younger vampire dies, their body desiccates to its actual age. But for older vampires, after a time…all that's left is…"

"Dust. 200-year-old dust." I finished his thought. The only body Damon would even have a chance to return to would be a box full of two hundred year old dust and some bones.

"You're still trying to do it."

I can't give up on him, Jere."

"Elena told me you asked Bonnie about crossing Damon over."

I felt my heart drop at the mention of that particular part of our conversation and my eyes involuntarily closed as I felt my eyes sting under the knives of those implications.

Jeremy was silent for a moment before he spoke. "Do you think he knows?" he asked unexpectedly.

"About what?" I turned to him finally in the darkness of dusk. The breeze cooled the remnants of my tears on my skin and Jeremy's face didn't mask his worry.

"Do you think Damon knows about his humanity?"

Finally I cracked a smile at the unlikely thought. "That is an excellent question." I paused. "By the way he acted the first couple of times I interacted with him," Jeremy was still watching me. "I doubt it."

"What is he like? His human side, I mean."

I smiled finally and immediately I felt Jeremy lighten too.

"He's really sweet. Completely and undeniably selfless. Like, he'd do anything to ensure my happiness, no matter what the cost was to him."

"He had a little of that as a vampire too," Jeremy spoke in my thoughts. I turned to him and he was starring forward into the growing darkness. "He always made sure Elena was safe, even if that meant he may not walk away in one piece. Even in the darkest times he made a point to make her laugh."

"He's really stubborn. He was such an ass the first few times, but…I don't know, he changed so much so quickly. There's just something about being near him. Behind all the cockiness and bravado…I found something unexpected." Jeremy wasn't watching me anymore. Though he was physically close, his absent stare made me wonder where his mind had gone off to.

"What was he like when you knew him?" Finally, Jeremy's neck snapped to my direction, and the strangely dark look in his eyes when our gaze met made me shiver.

"You don't want to know," he finally spoke after a silence. "He was dark—dangerous enough that I don't know if you really want to know."

I made a noise and looked away. "From what everyone else has said, I gathered everyone thinks he deserves this."

"I wouldn't say that," Jeremy cut me off. "He was dangerous-he had a streak in him so dark and sinister, he could be a monster and nothing else."

I felt my skin ice over in the breeze. Jeremy's voice grew dark, the angles of his shape rigid and pointed.

"He killed me once," he finally spoke and I felt myself involuntarily struggle to pass a thick lump deep in my esophagus. "But sometimes I think people _made him that way_ and then tried to call him a monster when he turned out the way he did."

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly, but Jeremy never looked in my direction.

"I didn't know him as well as Stefan does of course, or even Elena, but from what I saw, even in his darkest and most dangerous times, he was never as deadly as even Stefan could be."

"Stefan had a dark side?"

"He still does. It's in each one of us. It's a switch—our humanity I mean," he didn't turn his head, but I saw his eyes glance in my direction to observe my reactions to all these developments. "Most of us vampires just choose to turn the switch off-we shut out our humanities because it numbs it all and it makes it easier. Almost every vampire starts that way. The fight to turn it off is ever present, and it's just so much easier to have it off. Stefan spent decades off, completely detached from his humanity. But Damon, he fought and fought for years and years to be the good guy, to keep his humanity on, but I think it just overwhelmed him."

"The pain?" I questioned.

"The loneliness," Jeremy responded. "The loneliness of always being rejected pushed to second place and always being passed on for his brother and taken as the darker side. And the guilt. I think his guilt of everything he'd ever done and the guilt that everyone threw on him as the oldest son as a human, and a murderer by nature as a vampire made his soul just rot away until there was nothing else there to occupy him, and all he could do to survive was make it disappear."

I listened to Jeremy's voice and the words he spoke, and while they matched my image of this man I had so heavenly fallen for just those few, short weeks ago.

"I know you love him," Jeremy's voice interjected my thoughts. I turned to him and he was standing this time. "Anybody can tell. You _glow_ just mentioning him. Your heart beat quickens, your skin warms, your emotions are everywhere, and I can _sense _it—"

I stood to my feet, feeling an uneasiness grow between us and the unexpected eye contact we made brought a chill up my spine at what I saw in Jeremy's warm, brown eyes.

"…But you have to think about the best and unselfish solution."

I let my head drop, our eye's losing their connection. I felt defeated; I was so confused and so certain, so broken and so solid all at once. But everything Jeremy ever told me was right, and I had a moment when I suddenly realized something. Jeremy went to back away but suddenly and unexpectedly I took a step forward without raising my eyes and wrapped my arms firmly around Jeremy Gilbert's fit frame.

For a moment he was still, and then silently he moved, cautiously and awkwardly returning the embrace. He didn't make a sound or move to push me away, he just let me stand there being the only comfort I had at the moment, knowing very well how much I wished he were someone else.

* * *

><p>Jeremy and I walked back to the Gilbert House when the day had grown black and the air cold. Our silent commute wasn't awkward and I marveled at the safety I felt around him, but it also left me time to let my mind wander among the hurricane swirling in my brain.<p>

Yes, hurricane was the perfect term for my mind at that moment, dangerous winds swirling around a center, continuously gathering more water and winds, as this tangled web I wove myself in mystic falls grew larger to. And at the center of that had to be Damon. My love for Damon was steady, and calm, and peaceful, but surrounded by the most dangerous part of the storm: the wall of the eye, and the curses fighting against me to bring back this man I loved.

The chain around my neck felt heavy then and I suddenly remembered Damon's ring still dangling off my neck. Pulling the chain swiftly over my head, the large blue stone shined in my palm. It was so royal, with the lapis lazuli, the silver D carved into the Salvatore crest. Fit for a prince. My prince. My Damon.

"Elle?" My head snapped instantly to the open doorframe and Jeremy was standing their, one hand on the doorframe, another idly to his side, watching me intently. "Are you ok?"

I put on a brave smile and replied back almost robotically with an "I'm fine."

His lip twitched. "If I didn't already know the lie behind those words," he whispered.

I looked up at him, Damon's ring still cradled in my hands like a priceless gem. "What do you want, Jeremy?"

"I want to make sure you're ok. My ex just told you if you really love your boyfriend then you need to kill him and I have a hard time believing that you're 'ok' about it." His eyes were on mine, but as the words slipped off his tongue, they grew ever more painful in my heart and I dropped my eyes back to the blue stone ring in my hands.

"I should never have come to Mystic Falls. I wish I'd never followed that stupid impulse."

"I'm not." Jeremy suddenly blurted and when I looked up at him, my skin moist again under the tears I didn't even feel anymore, he released the doorframe he leaned against and stepped towards me. He took four steps forward, and when he reached the edge of the bed I was currently sitting on he didn't join me but instead crouched to my eye level in front of me. "I know you think this has been nothing but a pain fest for you," his hand met my face so lightly I felt like my skin melted right into his as he tilted my gaze towards him. "You need to know you did a lot of good here."

"I can't even do the one thing I wanted to," I tearfully pleaded back like a child.

"Bring Damon back? Maybe you weren't supposed to."

"Don't say that, Jere," I replied quickly pushing his hand away with my gaze.

"No," he grew strong. "You need to hear this. You think you failed because you can't bring him back Elle, but maybe you were never meant to. Damon died almost two decades ago. He died saving a group if people that were the closest thing to family he ever had since he was a child. He died because he finally admitted that he cared, that he loved and that he was the good guy. And you finally made him realize that. You brought out the part of Damon that no one could since it disappeared. The part of him that didn't die just 17 years ago, but almost 200. That's not a failure. And us? Me? Stefan? Elena? Do you know what you gave us? You gave Elena a farewell to her best friend she never got to say goodbye to. You let her find peace in knowing Damon didn't die alone and he didn't die feeling unloved but fulfilled, and loved, and appreciated, and the happiest he'd ever been since his human death. And Stefan? Even if you didn't bring Damon back, you gave Stefan that peace of mind that his brother died forgiving him and for him to get a better chance at life that Damon ever had the chance at. That's not a failure, Elle. That's magic. You brought magic back to a town that died with Damon, and it kills me that you walk around with a broken heart not realizing how much of an impact you've had on all of our lives, mine included."

I swallowed the enormous pressure that seems to have built up deep in my throat. His words were heavy, yet somehow it felt like the air between us was growing lighter rather than heavy.

"Don't say you wish you had never come here," he started again, recapturing my gaze. "Because then I never would have met you." Our eyes were locked, and for a moment I was frozen at the strange wonder I found in his warm, brown eyes. There was something there that was different. It was something I'd seen before in another man, but not in Jeremy Gilbert's. Something that suddenly made me swallow again, made my breath get caught in my throat, my skin prickle as if in a chill, a magnetism pulling our eyes together.

"Jere…" I wanted to speak, the words on my tongue, but the breath still locked in my throat made it lighter than a whisper, the magnetism brought him closer, my chilled skin turned ablaze, my ears numbed over, my eyes grew heavy, lids drooping closed, my body frozen still but pulsing in anticipation as his soft, silken lips brushed softly over mine. And suddenly I felt like I wanted to gasp, all the heat radiating from my body coursed through my veins, these wave of magic, rushing over my skin, rushing into the roots of my hair, glistening down the strands until I felt like the world around us turned ablaze. His hand met the side of my neck, I melted into his skin, our body pressed together, the world disappearing, my vision brilliant, blazing colors, my skin glowing, my ears ringing, my heart pounding.

And then our lips detached and I breathed in deeply and unsteadily, eyes still closed, trying to keep everything still locked in my soul. But I couldn't, because as soon as Jeremy Gilbert's heavenly lips, and breath, and taste, and skin separated from mine, everything turned frozen and dead inside me. The glow turned into a shadow, the warmth an emptiness, my vision cleared as my eyes finally fluttered open.

Jeremy's eyes were steady in front of mine, his body unmoving, breath vacant, and eyes showing something dark, and empty, and very broken at the moment.

"I know you love Damon, but I think I need to make my ground clear, even if you don't feel the same way. You're amazing, and beautiful, but you can't fix something that is already gone, and even if it breaks your heart when this is all over, I want you to know you're not alone, and you've already saved us all more than you could ever know…"

I blinked emptily at him, my thoughts muddled and fused together, desperately attempting to process what it was he was saying as he stood from his spot before me. My eyes were snapped to his shape, following his movement over to the door but my mouth hung ajar, completely lost for words and bewildered.

"Enjoy Damon for a while longer. Give him something worth 17 years of waiting before you break the news to him. He deserves it—you deserve it." And I watched still silent as he closed the door quietly behind him and left me to my haunting thoughts.


	18. Chapter 17: Something to Remember

**Chapter 17: Something to Remember**

_"What's wrong?" He whispered gently, his fingers softly brushing a strand of my hair over my skin and behind my ear. My body rested against his chest, my knees bent over of my his, my side against his chest, eyes closed, tortured, against the base of his neck._

_"Nothing Damon," I lied miserably. I felt like I was falling apart. I knew I couldn't sleep well. My mind felt tortured, my hearing and sight hazy; I felt like I was a bad radio signal, my body in and out of connection as my physical body struggled to hold on to slumber on the other side. _

_Damon's arms came together closer around my back and the side of my body. "What's wrong?" He repeated, ignoring my blatant attempt to hide my turmoil._

_"Nothing Damon," I mumbled again. I wrapped my arms tighter around his torso and buried my face closer into his chest. I wanted to breathe him in, lock his smell, his warmth, and his heartbeat firmly in my mind for a time when this would surely end. But he didn't have a smell, or warmth, and his heart hadn't beat in almost two decades. _

_"You're a bad liar," he told me softly, straining his neck to kiss my forehead tenderly. _

_"Please Damon, I just want to hold you close today." _

_"Elle," he tilted my face up to his and I knew he could see everything hiding behind my eyes. This thin façade I tried to hold up welcomed him through with open arms. I couldn't keep the monsters in my heart away; he could always hear me cry._

_"Jeremy kissed me today," I finally mumbled so low I was sure he didn't hear it._

_But he did. He muscles all tensed at once, and his stance was so subtle he didn't show that he heard it, but I knew._

_"And I let him," this time I finally said loudly as all the tears started up again. "I just let him kiss me, and it was soft and sweet and warm and all I could think about was how much I wished you could kiss me like that; I wished you could kiss me warmly, feel the heat off your lips, your breath warm in my mouth and your skin soft late in the day but it wasn't you, it was Jeremy, and I let him kiss me and I know he likes me but I love you so much and, and…"_

_"Shhhhh," he hushed softly. He brought me into his arms again until my forehead was against his chin. "Do you love him?"_

_I looked up at him from my tear stricken face and in occurred to me then how broken everything just felt right now-the pressure of everything was just ready to burst behind the tall dam of my façade of strength. I didn't know anymore. I didn't know what to feel or who to feel it about or what I wanted or not. _

_Except for Damon._

_"I love _you_ Damon. Its only you."_

_"Then I have an idea," he spoke up as he shifted away from me standing up beside where he had just been lying._

_"Damon, please, can we just lie here?" I protested hazily as he pulled me up by my hands until I was sitting at the edge of the bed._

_"Trust me," he told me softly. He pecked me lightly on the lips and to my surprise this time; there was neither lingering nor want to advance in his sweet, sweet kiss. His hands softly tugged the cotton of my shirt and I let him pull it over my head, lifting my arms so the gentle fabric slid slowly off my arms._

_"What about you?" I asked low. I was almost completely bare in front of him and he was still completely dressed._

_"This is about you, Elle."_

_"No, Damon," I protested slightly as he lifted me to my feet. "I want to be with you."_

_He paused for a moment, his eyes looking so soft behind that clear, clear blue, and finally he smiled, gave in to my whims and in one swift motion pulled his shirt over his head. "So pushy," he teased lightly, his hands undoing his belt and his jeans then returning to me in record speed. His hands took mine in his and he pulled me up to my feet before bending down for a second, snaking one arm behind my knees and swiftly pulling me up bridal style. My arms snaked around his neck and I nuzzled my nose into his soft neck and my eyes fluttered closed._

_"What are you doing?" I whispered._

_"We are going to take a bath."_

_"Oh no, no Damon, I don't think…" My words faded out as his brilliant smile met my eyes and the glow in his crystal eyes made my thoughts disappear._

_"Trust me," he whispered smoothly as he leaned in close to my ear, and I held my arms around his neck tighter as the room changed around us._

_And I had to hold back the choked tears I want to release when I instantly recognized the gorgeous stone and the shimmering silvers of _his _bathroom. _

_"Mmmmm…" I mumbled into his soft, slippery skin. His arms held me snug to his chest, and as I lay with my eyes closed and my head at the crook of neck, I pretended for a moment that I was awake. That this was reality and Damon and I really were in warm, soapy bathtub where the water never cooled and we could just stay forever together, in and out of my dreams._

_"I love you Damon," I mumbled into his skin._

_"I love you too," he replied back lowly. We were silent for a while then, occasionally the only noises being that of my breathing or the water being disturbed as Damon pulled water and suds over my exposed shoulder soothingly._

_"You know, sometimes I feel like I can almost hear you when you're gone."_

_I opened my eyes, my hand idly resting along his ribs, my thumb fanning back and forth over his skin. "I wish I could just stay here with you forever," I whispered._

_"I don't," he replied questionably, and this time I actually opened my eyes and glanced up at him._

_"I don't want you ending up in this hell like I did. I love you too much to be selfish enough to wish this on you."_

_I breathed deeply out of my nose but didn't say anything. What I wouldn't do to have this wonderful soul in my life is physically brought to reality with a heartbeat and a pulse. I had grown infatuated with Damon, fallen in love with Damon, and now I was at the point of being so in love with this dead man that my heart was splitting into two. Half of me wanted to keep him here. I wanted to keep him here with me, to be the heart and love and support I needed whenever I wanted. The other half though was dying knowing this _was_ his personal hell. He was alone here. When I walked the earth by day, with his brother, with his old love, with Jeremy and everyone else I cared about, Damon was alone. He sat here in this in between not quiet dead but not at all alive, suspended between the here and there that could not bring him happiness or peace. He was not at peace, and it killed him to miss all that he was missing. I was only a brief moment of comfort when what he deserved was eternal peace._

_"What are you thinking about?" His whisper broke my thoughts then. My eyes fell softly closed again and my arms instinctively pulled him a little closer._

_"I don't want to let you go," I whispered softly. My hand reflexively smoothed over his slippery skin a little, my fingers finding comfort in the soft ripples of his skin over his sculpted, luxurious muscle. _

_"I'm not going anywhere," he spoke back softly. He was cradling me in his arms, like a child more than like a lover, but so sweet and tender under the warm, soapy water. My reply slipped off my tongue before I even registered._

_"What if you had a choice to leave?"_

_"To be with you?" he asked. He pressed his lips lightly to my shoulder._

_"To cross over," I replied finally. He was quiet and I knew he was thinking about it as he laid soft kisses over my shoulder and towards my neck. After a moment though, he lifted his lips from my skin and looked me in the eyes._

_"I think I've already lived longer on this earth than I should."_

_I had to close my eyes when he said that. Deep inside my heart I knew it was what he wanted—I had always known—but hearing him say it made it a whole new reality._

_"This isn't fair," I muttered almost inaudibly, eyes still pressed closed. I felt the vibration of his almost chuckle and I could almost feel his smile._

_What was fair anymore? If any part of this crazy life were fair, I could bring Damon back with blood in his veins and warmth in his skin. If life were fair we would be in his real bathroom right now, surrounded by polished stack-stone wall and lavish furnishings and his bedroom just outside the archway. If life were fair we could make love in his enormous bed with the plush, white sheets and sweat would form on our sticky skins as they mixed. Of course, if life were fair Damon Salvatore would never have become vampire, he would never have died such a self-sacrificial death and he wouldn't be almost 200 years old. If life were fair his body would be here now with me, and not under that giant willow tree, old and decayed, rotting away with his soul trapped between this life and death._

_But then a thought struck me._

_"I know you're thinking of something. What is it?" He was completely in tune with my body. He felt the shift in emotion because those lazy circles across my skin were becoming more flirtatious and playful than comforting and reassuring._

_I sat up and turned quickly back to him. I knew my expression must have been strange because Damon's crystal eyes darkened a little and his brows met in the middle in curiosity. "What?" He questioned again._

_"I was just thinking…." I trailed off in the middle of the sentence as my mind was racing and Damon cocked his head to side and lifted a brow._

_"I can do a lot of things, but reading your mind isn't one of them, Elle."_

_I rolled my eyes at his remark slapping him away playfully and in return a smile broke his lips. There was a strange mix of hope and curiosity that was spreading across my face and he was well aware of it._

_"I was just thinking, that Jeremy told me when a vampire dies their body decomposes slowly to the real age they are."_

_Damon was still again. He could sense my emotions well enough, but if he knew where this thought was headed, he didn't let on to it._

_"So I was thinking that if I actually saw your…" my mind struggled to find a better word. "…_remains, _all that would be left are 200-year-old dust."_

_Damon leaned back against the edge of the tub, an arm on either side of the large tub walls, on hand just barely touching my skin as he stroked my arm slowly and softly unconsciously. _

_"But you never_ actually_ made it to the other side," I continued on. His expression suddenly shifted, recognition of what I was getting towards registering on his face._

_"So I'm wondering if your body ever actually died or if it's just frozen in a half-dead state."_

_"But I'm a vampire," he states bluntly._

_"No," I stated strongly. "Your _body_ was a vampire. But this part here," I leaned into him until my hand pressed against his chest and the deep, red ring of where his heart should have been beating. "This is like you soul. The part connected to your body even after you died as a human, making you a vampire in the first place."_

_He didn't say anything. Whether or not he was simply not buying my explanation or the mechanics of how vampirism works was new news to him wasn't something I could decipher._

_"That's must be how vampirism works. It's the same way my magic can try and bring back something freshly deceased-you reattach the soul to the body, bringing back the life force."_

_"But I still died 17 years ago."_

_I leaned in close to him, finally my face showing some hope, the hint of a smile, the hope I needed to see more clearly._

_"But your soul never made it to the other side, so there must be a connection to your body still."_

_His eyes searched mine._

_"I'm wondering if your body actually ever died, or it's just frozen in a time waiting to be reconnected."_

_And then I saw it happen: the magic answer he had been waiting to hear. The hope in this darkness he thought he was doomed to endure for all eternity; the end to his curse._

_"And if it is, **I can bring you back."**_


	19. Chapter 18: The Grimoire

**Author's Note:****  
><strong>Sorry this is such a short chapter guys, but the next one is already underway. ;)

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 18: the Grimoire<strong>

Before I could speed my way to the bottom of the stairs, Jeremy was at the foot of the steps with a mug in his hand. As I made it to the bottom, my large, old grimoire in one arm and my finger holding the page I was at, he smiled at me with an expression that said "good morning" but also with a hint of apology.

"Have a good dream?" He replied smugly and I felt my face pinken at the mention of my dreams but didn't let my wandering mind distract my mission.

"I've been looking through my grimoire. There's some interesting bits on how Vampirism works."

"Right. Because asking the Vampire won't get you enough answers, I see." I sighed loudly at his quips, but nonetheless he followed me close behind.

"I'm not looking at _how_ a vampire is a vampire, but more _why; _the magic behind it."

Jeremy situated himself in the single seat in front of me, and my large grimoire fell heavily on the coffee table between us with a clatter. The pages fluttered open to the place I held. "As long as I don't have to contact anymore dead ex's or bewitched grimoire, I'll help you with whatever you need."

"Well, this grimoire only has one spell that may give us some clue as to how this works, but it's a spell on how to bring back a human who's been dead for less than about an hour."

"What about a vampire who's been dead 17 years?"

My eyes snapped up at him and sharpened until Jeremy stopped talking and let me continue.

"The way it works," I continued. "Is basically trying to reconnect the life with the body. If you try when they've died soon enough their soul or _spirit_ still has a connection to their body. Which is why it has to be done early, because once the spirit and body disconnect, the life can't be brought back."

"But wouldn't Damon's spirit and body be long separated by now?"

"I don't know. His spirit isn't—that must be the humanity in a vampire. Damon's human spirit is very much alive, but it's not in the living and it not on the other side either."

"So what does that say about Damon? If his spirits not on the other side, does that mean there is still a connection?"

"Apart from digging up Damon's body," I sighed loudly closing my grimoire and letting my body fall back into the chair. "Not really."

Jeremy looked at his hands and I closed my eyes, pinching the skin of my nose with my fore fingers as I felt that familiar tension building from my frustration. "It's like every step I take forward just unleashed a whole new challenge."

Jeremy smirked, his eyes still low. "That's Damon for you," he deadpanned and I finally cracked a smile. There was silence for a moment before I spoke.

"I'm sorry I brought you into this." Jeremy glanced up but didn't say anything as our eyes met. "Especially if I led you on."

"You never led me on," he finally interjected. "I think I had just grown lonely around here. Mystic falls is either always death, or always silence. Those oblivious to it live their lives day by day in happy ignorance, while the rest of are just trying to keep us in one piece. When you suddenly came into town and I got past the whole witch phobia," he cracked a smile meeting my eye and I finally had to let my lips lighten too. "You turned out to be this strong, powerful person, and you were so full of life and mystery, I couldn't help feel intrigue. I think you just opened up the little missing piece of humanity that rotted away with the rest of the old city."

I scooted to the edge of my seat and closer to him so I could take both his hands into mine.

"I like you Jeremy," I started. "But not romantically. You're the only friend I have here and you've been a family to me here like you can't imagine—a blessing, a brother, and a friend all in one. You protected me and helped me on this crazy stupid…_thing,_ but I don't want to mislead you."

"Its ok," he cut me off then. "I watched my sister unintentionally toy with two hearts at once and in the end all three of them ended up heart broken." He cracked a smile. "I get it. I'm not _that guy_ for you. That's what you have Damon for—and he deserves it. He deserves more than anyone I can think of at this point, because even after killing me twice and never seeming to listen to what my sister told him, he saved us all, and he's been waiting for someone to love him as much as he could love them for almost two centuries. I'm not stupid and I wasn't blind-everyone could see it."

I felt my eyes stinging, on the verge of spilling over in all these raw emotions even as I broke into a small half-sad-laugh, and Jeremy just smiled in return his classic, Jeremy smile. "You need to try to bring him back."

"I know," I sighed heavily. "I've been trying—we've been trying, but its like I said…the more I know, the more I need to know and I don't even know where to started." I let my body fall back into the cushioned sheet, letting go of Jeremy's hands finally and feeling the weight of all things Damon stress being restacked onto my shoulders. I glanced back at Jeremy and suddenly his expression was partly glazed over.

"What?" I voiced breaking him from his trance. If ever there were such a thing as a light-bulb moment, this was it.

"What if you knew the exact spell used to make the stake that killed him?"

"You know the spell Bonnie used to make the stake that killed Damon?" I asked incredulously.

"Better, I know where Bonnie's grimoire was hidden when she died."  
>My eyes went wide. If I had the grimoire of any witch, every spell she had ever completed or attempted in theory would be in there. And with luck, all the loopholes and reversal does should be laid out in there too.<p>

Yes, this was definitely a light-bulb moment.

"If I were still human I could probably just ask her myself," Jeremy's clear voice sounded over the crackling and creaking of the crunchy dry leaves beneath our feet. I had half expected Jeremy to say the grimoire was in the cemetery—locked in some tomb with the decaying body of Connie Bennett or something. To my surprise however, Jeremy turned straight into the thickly wooded area on the outskirts of the town. Thankful for the morning hours, the floor was still well lit even in the shade of the tall, slim trees. But once night fell, I would be blinded in darkness.

"We buried her grimoire where she died," his voice rang out in the midst of my thoughts. "But then someone tried to retrieve it, so we had to move it." Jeremy finally stopped and when I looked up we were in the presence of what appeared to be a cave or remains of a very old dilapidated structure.

"What is this?" I questioned as I peered inside but didn't take even one step closer.

"In 1864, the year Damon and Stefan were turned, this was the location where something like a 100 "innocents" were burned alive in a church fire. But of course, it was actually all the city's vampires, including-"

"Katherine Pierce." I finished for him. I saw him glance in my direction from the corner of his eye in curiosity.

"Damon told me all about her."

"Lucky for you, you never met her," he half muttered to himself as he finally moved forward into the darkness. "Well, here it is."

I looked forward in the direction of where Jeremy pointed but the only thing there was a rock wall.

"Am I not seeing the same thing you are, or…"

"Its spelled," he answered before I could finish. "Unless her spirit wants you to know its here, or you can make your own spell to see it, it's invisible."

"So how do I get it?" This was beginning to turn into some video game puzzle where I had to trade a fish in for a magic map or something.

"You're the witch Elle." And I was, so I closed my eyes for a moment, just trying to clear my head. This would be an easy spell. Something easy to uncover, but when I opened my eyes again to recite some syllables to make the book appear, to my surprise and astonishment, it was right in front of me, sitting in a small crevice in the rock, an old, very similarly styled, leather-bound book.

A book that may hold the secret to brining back Damon Salvatore sent goose bumps across my skin. Jeremy eyed me and motioned to the book. Reluctantly I took a step forward. There was a strange feeling in the space. The feeling of power—immense that felt like it was seeping in my bones like a fine chemical. This wasn't just some hole beneath rubble of history. Something important had happened here. Someone with immense magical power had done something here. The room _vibrated_ with the power.

I was only a step from the book now. I could feel this strange power, felt its strange power, attempting to push me from it. My mind was hazing. Like I was forgetting why I wanted the book, why I needed to look inside the grimoire…the spell I needed….

"Damon." I whispered out loud as my hands reached for the old text. I needed this grimoire for Damon.

A gust of window blew through the space suddenly, the dirt of the floor swirling and biting over my skin like needles for an instant.

And then it stopped. Just as suddenly as it rushed down the cave-like space, it disappeared. Jeremy yelled something, probably wondering what had happened, but I didn't hear him. All my attention was on the now open grimoire at my hands, and the ink-stained 17-year-old spell starring me back from its old, brittle pages.


	20. Chapter 19: Broken Spells

**Author's Note:  
><strong>This is probably the biggest twist of the entire fiction and I've been waiting to unleash it since the prologue. *evil grin*  
>A little fluff at the end too because Elle really needed it too.<br>Feel free to take guess at what caused this "twist".  
>Enjoy!<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 19: Broken Spells<strong>

"Are you ok?" Jeremy was asking just a step away. I didn't even notice when he'd made his way closer to me, nor was I noticing him now. In my hands was Bonnie Bennett's grimoire opened to one page with the last scribbled spell open to my eyes. The spell that killed Damon Salvatore. There was a strange sensation building in my chest, something along the lines of hope mixed with fear, some anxiety and a lot of questions that were still unanswered.

"What was that?" Jeremy kept prodding, for the first time in a long time revealing his physical age in the annoying questioning.

"Shhh," I hushed him. I wasn't looking, but I could practically feel him scowl next to me. Without weighing the benefits or downfalls of my decision, I gingerly gripped the book in both hands, and as soon as I lifted, another milder gust of wind blew through the space, all the old torches in the room lit unexpectedly, making my hair stand on end, and my eyes met Jeremy's in question. There were spirits here and they new a witch was in their presence.

"Is that the spell?" Jeremy asked, but my eyes were back on the page, trying to make out recognizable characters. I'd inherited my own Grimoire when my aunt left it to, and there was a moment of curiosity when I had first opened her book and realized I could read a language that was most definitely not English. But this book…Bonnie Bennett's Bennett-line Grimoire was different. It was written similarly, but the pages were much older, the ink looked like it was a dipped quill rather than an ink pen, and this page I was currently starring at was not only the newest page in the book, written with a completely different utensil, but it seemed rushed…it didn't look complete. The last few words were simply two words at the end of the page, but they were smudged and almost completely illegible. But…something looked familiar….

"Elle?" Jeremy sounded again just as I finally recognized the characters. My eyes went wide, and my skin froze over, ice cold. My breath stopped in my throat. There was a now very visible D, and a Very visible S…

"Damon Salvatore," I read out loud. My eyes snapped up, wide and full of astonishment just as Jeremy's did the same and met mine.

"This is the spell Jere," I told him in disbelief the book in my hands now in the center of the room. Jeremy walked over to me until his chest was almost pressed against the outer edge of the book in my hands.

"Ok, so is this a good thing or…"

But I was puzzled. Looking down at the spell in my hand, attempting to make out the strange, old scribbles was beginning to raise more questions than answers.

"Elle?" Jeremy asked but I didn't even pay him any attention.

The spell didn't make any sense. What Damon had told me was that Bonnie wrote a spell for an ordinary wood stake that when used by an original would kill the original and the vampire being staked. But this spell was very different. This was a much more complex spell than I had anticipated, and even only reading every other word, I could tell something was very different here in the spell.

"Something's not right here," I finally spoke. "This isn't a spell to do what Damon told me."

I didn't see it, but Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

I could feel my heart beginning to race; my breath was getting thick in my throat. "Meaning it was supposed to take the death of the victim being staked and place it on the one holding the stake.

I suddenly lifted my eyes to meet Jeremy's and for the first time his wide-eyed expression mirrored mine. He knew exactly what I meant.

"Wait," Jeremy's voice was cold and suddenly dawning the new insight. "Damon wasn't a sacrifice?" My head was spinning and I felt my stomach start to swirl.

"Oh my God." I said out loud. I felt my legs turn to jelly, like they were about to give out and I probably would have fallen if Jeremy hadn't of seen of sway and grabbed both my arms in his hands steadying me. But Jeremy couldn't steady my emotions or the racing of my mind.

"He wasn't supposed to die."

* * *

><p>I felt paralyzed. Everything going through my mind like the rush of the waves deep in the ocean paralyzed my body into a numb, motionless mass.<p>

Damon was never meant to die. Bonnie had planned for Klaus to die and for Damon to walk away unscathed. But instead they did die-except he was stuck in the limbo between life and afterlife.

"Here," Jeremy handed me a mug of something yellow and though the porcelain was hot from whatever substance resided in it, everything felt cold against my skin. I felt his hand rest against my shoulder farthest away from him, and the comforting squeeze of reassurance but I didn't react. "Are you ok?" Jeremy was being careful with his words, but underneath the meaningless question I knew he was asking when this episode of mine was going to end. When had I turned into such a child?

"It was an accident," I said so numbly, so lifelessly it felt cold coming off my lips. "He wasn't supposed to die. Bonnie was going to save him."

Jeremy didn't say anything and instead just kept his arm around me as if trying to keep me together like a puzzle that was falling apart. This wasn't helping our exclusively-friends relationship, but it didn't matter right now. I didn't feel it anyway. My thoughts could not be farther from Jeremy Gilbert's heart at the moment.

"If I'd been born just twenty years earlier, if I had just known him while he was alive, I could have saved him."

"You don't know that," Jeremy interjected unexpectedly. Finally I moved, whipping my head towards him so quickly with my mouth slightly ajar I heard the bones in my neck crackle in protest.

"I **DO** know that," I bit back harshly. "He was **supposed** to live. Whatever Bonnie did—"

"Whatever Bonnie did was not in her control," Jeremy defended back. His arm wasn't around me anymore. He had his steel wall up once more, I felt him going cold. "She may not have been as strong as you, but she had the power of 100 witches at one point and she _**never**_ made a mistake." His expression was cold, and his eyes sharp, intently focused on mine. "She never would have let herself open to take one of us down if there was a possibility of saving us—and even if she didn't like Damon all the time, Elena _**loved**_ him, and Stefan would have died for him, and there is no way she would have just made some silly mistake to bring him down."

"Then why is he dead right now?"

"You're the witch," he suddenly spoke darkly. His eyes were growing red, and as I starred at him the veins under his eyes twitched for a moment, but then disappeared again. "You know spells—and you know Damon. Figure it out," and with that he rose and disappeared so quick the wind from him movement blew at my face.

Figure it out—right, because it was so easy. I felt the furry in me growing. I'd gone from shocked, to depressed, to livid in just a few moments. And this was all Jeremy Gilbert now. Furious now and temperamental, I didn't even think about it as I flung the book away from me and it crashed against the exterior wall of Jeremy Gilbert's home. Feel all the motions building up in my eyes, all I could do think about everything I'd gone through in the few weeks I'd been here. Or was it months? So much had happened since my introduction to Mystic Falls, I couldn't even keep track of it anymore.

"You weren't supposed to die!" I screamed into the wind, clutching at the hole that I felt eating away in my chest, Damon's ring still hung from my neck beneath the thin cotton of my shirt found itself in my hand as I desperate tried to hold myself together while I was really falling to pieces. There wasn't any reply besides the Virginia air at my face and the stars so easily available in such a dark, antique town. "You weren't supposed to fucking die!" All that reverberated to me was silence, but it didn't matter, I just had to yell at someone or something.

"Why did you die?" The words now slipped off like a whimper. "You didn't have to die, and you weren't supposed to. What went wrong?" I was feeling so cold in those moments; like that newfound emptiness was occupying my body again. A cold, dark, emptiness. "You should be here with me now. You should be here, waiting for me to arrive n this town. You should be here, alive, with your dark hair and your sexy smile and those eyes that make me forget my name. You should be here to protect me, and take care of and letting me take care of you. You should be here with me." I let the first sob escape my lips and shake through my body. "You should be here with me, Damon."

**He held me close to his body, his arms wrapped around me in a protective gesture, and as I started to stir, this dream world materializing around me I felt the soft cotton of his T-shirt against my face and buried myself closer into the embrace that was Damon.**

"**Hmmmm," I sighed deeply, clinging to him close. The more time I spent with Damon the more I wish I could just absorb him, melt my skin into his, breathe in his scent and meld us together into an unbreakable mix. But the more that happened, the farther he was beginning to grow away from me.**

"**What's wrong?" He whispered softly in my ear. My eyes were closed, tired as I was sleeping unsteadily in the really world but the fear of losing him keeping me here at the same time.**

"**You," I deadpanned without even thinking about it and I felt the vibration off of Damon's body as he laughed. **

"**I love you," he whispered to me without warning. **

**My eyes opened and I took a deep breath. We were in Damon's room again, but the surroundings weren't distracting me. I moved away from Damon and he stayed where he was resting against the headboard of his large bed, watching me as I turned around so I could face him. He was curious about my movements, but when I pulled my shirt over my head, straddled his legs and wrapped my arms around his neck he smiled before our lips met and he brought his hands up to the sides of my ribs.**

"**I love you," I sighed into the of my hands dropped down to the buttons of his shirt, undoing them slowly, revealing that smooth, silky skin I so dearly craved. I wanted to drown in him again. Just get lost in Damon Salvatore's body and soul, be consumed by who he was and who he made me, even if I was just going to wake up alone in a few hours. The last button popped and my pushed back his shirt over his arms as he let go of my sides for a moment to let the cloth slide down his arms. Before he could put his hand back on my skin however, my fingers met the deep red ring on his chest again and he paused to watch my movements.**

"**You weren't supposed to die," I finally whispered, feeling the tear building behind my eyes lids again. My whole body felt the icy waters of pain. He was supposed to be alive right now. We were supposed to be in his room right now—his real room, where we could really get tangled in the sheets and wake up together tomorrow morning and breathe together and live together in something other than my dreams.**

"**That's why you were crying." It wasn't a question. My hand still over the hole in his heart, I met his eyes: they were grey this time. A hurt, cold, grey.**

"**You heard me." This wasn't a question either.**

"**More like…" his hands instinctively brought the sheets piled around my legs closer around my waist as I stayed perched in his lap. "I **_**felt**_** you. It was like a strange feeling that I just felt in my head."**

**I swallowed thickly. This was more complicated than I ever wanted it to be. Jeremy had always been right. I should never have let myself fall in love with Damon Salvatore.**

"**I love you so much, and we've never even met," I whispered as I pressed my forehead against his. I felt his skin stretch as he smiled. **

"**We met," he whispered. "It may not have been under the best circumstances, but this is me-this is the undiluted me. The me that is a lot more worthy of you than the whole me ever was."**

"**Don't say that Damon." It always hurt to hear him think so lowly of himself. "You're not the monster you make yourself out to be."**

"**You never met the whole me," he countered.**

**I sighed deeply and raised my forehead away from his so I could look him in the eyes. My hands stayed around his neck however. "No, I didn't, but I met a lot of people who loved you dearly."**

**Finally, he smiled a genuine smile. "And you?"**

**Finally, I smiled a genuine smile myself and he took the opportunity to gently take his thumbs to my face and wipe away those hurtful tears. "You I love unconditionally."**


	21. Chapter 20: Permanent Attachments

**Author's Note:**

Bet you thought I was long gone and would never return to finish my story, eh?

Well luckily that is not the case. I did completely neglect my story, and I am so sorry for that, and I wish I could promise it happen again but my life is in a chaotic point right now of alway being busy so then these things happen. So I will _attempt _not to take so long with the few remaining chapters (the story is almost over!) but I can really promise it. =(

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy the chapter. Please let me know what you think to my finally revealing the biggest twist to the fanfic-the entire backbone to why Damon is in the place that he is and why Bonnie caused Elle in the way that she did. Two big reveals in one.

The question is, after this development, do you think Elle is going to be able to bring back Damon? If not, what do you think _will_ happen?

Leave me love!

-Liz

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 20: Permanent Attachments<strong>

"Jeremy!" I shouted as my feet flew down the stairs, two steps here, and three steps there, it was a miracle I made it to the bottom in one piece. "Jere-oh!" Oh course as soon as the first syllable left my mouth the younger Gilbert was silently behind me-and not in a happy mood. The previous evening's argument obviously still plaguing his already muddled mind and possibly his physical body too. His skin looked like all the color had faded to the tone of ash. His eyes were dark and empty.

"What?" His voice was as cold and biting as his appearance. He took a big sip from a black glass. His dark red lips gave away his breakfast and it struck me for the first time that I'd never actually seen my current roommate actually ingest the core of a vampire's diet before.

But my focus now was not whether or not Jeremy Gilbert preferred A positive of O negative. "I wanted to talk to you," I started unevenly.

"Good. You're living under my roof. Its hard not to." He sidestepped away from towards the back of the kitchen area and I had to breathe in for a moment not to argue with the agitated vampire.

"I'm sorry," I blurted out before my stubbornness had a chance to hinder my mission. Jeremy didn't turn around but he did pause his movement.

"For what?"

_Deep breath, Elle. _"For…everything?" And it was true. "For being miss moping-all-day around here. For abusing this strange friendship we have going on. And for undermining Bonnie Bennett." He finally turned around at the last name mentioned. "She was special to you, Jere. And I trust you more than anyone else in this town, so I should be trusting you when it comes to the past too."

Jeremy just starred at me for a second, but then a smile broke his handsome face.

"Apology accepted," he said in a much better mood and his healthy pigment back in his skin. "And I guess I should apologize for being so defensive about Bonnie." I smiled at him in a silent acceptance. "I mean obviously something had to go wrong if Bonnie had intended for Damon to walk away from this and yet he ended up dead," he started. "But I just didn't like all the blame being put on her."

"I know," I sighed heavily, landing in the kitchen island's stool. I faced Jeremy but my hands were preoccupied with each other as my evening conversation with Damon plagued my mind. "Damon agrees with you, apparently."

The look on Jeremy's face was a pure reaction of surprise. "That's not Damon at all."

"I know," I muttered. "I wish everyone would stop telling me that."

There was a silence in the space or moment but when I glanced back up from my hands, there was a sad smile on my roommate's face.

"Did I fall in love with someone who died 17 years ago…or almost 200?"

He didn't say anything, but it was answer enough. I just felt my heart cramp on me all over again.

"Ok, I need to tell you something," he told me as he swiftly slid into the stool in front of me. It should have hit me as odd seeing Jeremy suddenly tear down all his human facades and let out his vampire characteristics so openly today, but my mind was far from his swiftness and silence and strongly focused on the dead man that was slowly destroying me from the inside out.

"Yes, if this Damon that you're in contact with is more of pre-vampire Damon than the Damon I met almost twenty years ago, then he isn't the same person." My eyes were burning with emotion but the face I saw when I glanced up at Jeremy had a strange reassurance behind the serious expression. "But one thing you have to know about Damon Salvatore is everything and anything he's ever done—both good and bad, has been for love."

I was feeling a headache coming on from the conversation.

"Listen, you have to believe this," he told me strongly. "Everyone was convinced he was a monster when he came here, but you'd have to see the transformation he went under in the few years that he met my sister."

"I know," I said quietly.

"No," he was abrupt. "I don't think you fully do. You're sitting here a complete disaster and mess over your broken heart…"

I frowned with pursed lips but stayed quiet nonetheless.

"So imagine if you essentially witnessed Damon being murdered and all those emotions in you were magnified a tenfold and left to fester in you for a hundred and forty-five years, only to then find out that person never died and was using you like a puppet for their own amusement."

"Perspective…" I whispered.

"If you're worried you won't love this vampire Damon as much as your limbo Damon, then that on your own accord. Just don't underestimate what Damon would or wouldn't do for someone who loves him even only a fraction as much as he loves you."

"I do love him."

"Not as much as he loves you," he was automatic to reply. "You can't beat the passion of a vampire, especially one searching for you for almost a century and a half."

"Do you know from experience?" I whispered back softly. Our eyes met, my moist, red and teary eyes to his soft brown and solemn ones."

"You could say that." I saw Jeremy's expression, and it was so solemn and empty in that moment that I didn't even think about it before I stood up, took one step forward and wrapped my arms around Jeremy Gilbert's upper body.

He stiffened immediately, but at the same time he didn't push me away.

"You don't know how great of a person you are." He didn't budge for a moment, but then as the words must have sunk in and he realized I was in no hurry to release his cool body, he very slowly and even awkwardly brought up his arms and returned the embrace. It felt so strange to have someone's powerful arms around me, and I realized in that instant that this was just a glimpse of what it would feel like to have Damon hold me in the real world, his muscles strong and unbreakable, his skin cool under the cotton of his shirt, and his chest completely and utterly silent with a beating-less heart.

"Thank you," I said finally when the two of us parted up and Jeremy met me with a soft smile.

"So what's your plan for bringing back Damon?"

It was as if my whole body started beaming in elation. "Figure out what went wrong with Bonnie's spell and figure out how to fix it so we don't bring back anything _besides_ Damon."

"So we should start with this." He pulled a folded pack of papers from his back jeans pocket. He unfolded the papers and placed them in front of me. It was the entire spell Bonnie had cast on Damon with some notes and explanations on parts of the spell. My eyes went big.

"You wrote this?"

A sound came out of his mouth like the beginning of a chuckle. "Last time I checked I wasn't a witch. But our new friend Byanca is." Something curious stirred in my mind at the mention of the same teenaged girl who had been possessed by the late Bonnie Bennett the first time I had encountered the young witch. It wasn't even that she was significantly younger than myself, she just had a strange innocence to her, and her intense fear of vampires at our second encounter made her cooperation with Jeremy over these detailed notes all the more curious. "Did she say anything about the spell?"

"Only that it's extensive and had different parts to it."

"Which is old news," I finished. "The spell was supposed to link Damon and Klaus and then in a different step, protect Damon so when Klaus staked him on Klaus would go down." There was finally silence between us again as I read over some of Byanca's notes. "I wonder if Bonnie even knows what went wrong with the spell…" my words suddenly trailed off at the second page—part II of the spell. My eyes flew over the strange sketch and words of something I hadn't noticed in Bonnie's grimoire where the original spell had been inscribed.

"What?" Jeremy broke the silence as he watched my eyebrows furrow in curiosity.

"Bonnie had to call on another Bennett witch's magic to run the spell that protected Damon," I began. "In order to do that, she needed something that Damon would have had on him that also had that witch's magic in it for it to separate Damon and Klaus."

"What about an ancestor?" Jeremy suddenly chimed in. I glanced up at him as something struck me that we were about to find this missing piece of the puzzle.

And then it suddenly struck me.

"Oh my God," I blurted out at the realization. "Damon's daylight ring."

"Emily Bennett made his ring." Jeremy watched me as everything all cleared out in my eyes in that instant and came crashing down on my like an avalanche of snow and ice.

My hand flew to the collar of my shirt and fumbled over and under the fabric until the cold, heavy ring came into contact with my fingers and I raised the chain around it over my head and into my palms on the island surface. "Damon didn't know Bonnie was planning on saving him so he wouldn't be at risk of telling Stefan or Elena," I started. "So he knew he'd never see the sun again when he said goodbye to Elena."

"Bonnie had everything planned."

Finally our eyes met as Jeremy put it all together too. "Except for Damon taking off the one thing that was supposed to save his life."

My whole body felt numb and time slowed down to a slug's pace. My heart beat loudly in my ears, my breath was loud and rugged…in…out…in…out.

Damon had not sacrificed himself after all—he had unintentionally committed suicide. The irony of it all was he did it with a ring created purposely to protect him from the sun and he'd almost committed suicide with the very same ring years before. And here I had been desperately searching for what caused his death…and it had been hanging around my neck the entire time.

"Elle?"

I had Damon's mistake—Damon's _killer_ dangling from my neck as the only physical remnant of him. But this token was the very thing that caused him and I to never meet in the physical world in the first place.

"Elle?"

But if Damon's ring was meant to save him and he didn't wear it… "That's why Bonnie was afraid I'd bring back Klaus," I suddenly blurted, completely absent from Jeremy's worried expression or voice. My heart was blasting loudly in my ears, my eyes was blurring over with my mind, my head was swirling with the thundering realization that this was the missing key to the entire puzzle—the one thing that went wrong and destroyed everyone's happy ending almost two decades ago.

"Damon's ring was supposed to save him…it was supposed to ensure Klaus, who's life was linked with Damon, would go down alone when either of them ended up staked—but since Damon never had his ring…"

"They're still attached," Jeremy finished. Finally I snapped my attention from the strange abyss of pure dread to see all the emotions currently running through my veins mirrored on Jeremy's very torn face.

He knew exactly what this meant now.

It all made sense. Why Bonnie wanted to stop me. Why Damon was neither dead nor alive. Why I couldn't bring him back.

"If I try to bring back Damon…" our eyes locked and I saw the pang of guilt, fear and pain in his eyes. I didn't need to finish the sentence on his accord. He fully understood the situation. "I'll bring back _both of them."_


End file.
